On this final day of Pride Month (June 30), Google’s homepage doodle illustration featured New York City’s iconic LGBTQ+ activist Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992), who is best known for helping to launch the now famous Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, following countless police raids and sustained brutality against the community. Google also made the announcement via Twitter today.
Today’s #GoogleDoodle celebrates activist, performer, and self-identified drag queen Marsha P. Johnson, one of the pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States. Thank you, Marsha, for inspiring generations → https://t.co/iL90QKyAPh pic.twitter.com/7h4FReUg2c
rn— Google (@Google) June 30, 2020
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The doodle, which shows Johnson wearing her iconic floral headband and wide smile, is an homage to “Black trans women and LGBTQ+ people of color,” according to the artwork’s description. Rightfully so, considering Johnson fought tirelessly throughout her life for the rights of Black and Latinx trans youth and opened STAR House in 1970 with fellow activist Sylvia Rivera (1951 to 2002), to provide shelter and community for trans sex workers and other LGBTQ+ youth.
There is a sustained need for the groundwork set by Johnson, as the Human Rights Campaign reported at least 27 violent deaths of transgender or gender non-conforming people in 2019, the majority of whom were Black transgender women, with at least 16 deaths this year.
As protests for the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ lives—specifically for Black trans lives—continue and grow 50 years after Stonewall’s uprising, Google.org announced on its page for Johnson that it will donate $500,000 in cash to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) to directly assist “Black trans people through the organization’s COVID-19 relief efforts.” According to the search engine, this funding builds on the company’s recent commitment to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ community organizations of color around the world.
Click here to learn more about Johnson and MPJI’s commitment "to elevate, support, and nourish the voices of BLACK trans people, [while]
rnundoing white supremacy in all of its forms."