I'm Eric Marcus. Welcome to the second season of Making Gay History. In this episode you'll meet two very different heroes of the LGBTQ civil rights movement,

people I'd never expected to find in the same room.

Beginning in the early 1960s,

Randy Wicker promoted the then radical idea

that homosexuals should be accepted

because they were just like everyone else.

Randy led the first public protest against anti-gay discrimination in 1964, dressed in a coat and tie.

Marsha P. Johnson was Randy's public relations nightmare,

a self-described drag queen hustler with a long arrest record

and a history of mental health issues,

who was best known for her role in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising.

My plan was to interview Randy at his Art Deco Lamp Shop just a few blocks west of the Stonewall Inn. But Randy had other ideas. He

suggested we go to his place across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey, where I could talk

with Marsha as well. I had no idea they were roommates. When we get to Randy's modest

apartment Marsha's in the kitchen making dinner. After a few minutes she

walks into the living room. She drapes herself in a chair like a cat in slow motion and

absentmindedly starts sorting through her shoulder bag. A frosted wig comes to the

surface and then disappears and then comes back to the surface again.

Before I can get the wires to the lapel mics untangled,

Randy is talking a mile a minute.

He's throwing off so much nervous energy

that I wish to myself

...