JOHNSON WAS A FIXTURE IN
NEW YORK CITY FOR DECADES1968
Aretha Franklin
Queen of soul
R&B may be the secular child of gospel
music, but in Aretha Franklin’s voice the
two styles entwined in heavenly perfection:
every note she sang felt sacred and sublime.
Franklin, born in 1942, began singing gos-
pel as a child in her father’s Detroit church
and, at 18, signed with Columbia Records.
But it was her move to Atlantic Records, in
1967, that ignited her career.
Franklin released three albums in
1968: Lady Soul, appearing in January, in-
cluded “Chain of Fools,” a dis aimed at an
ex-lover that could also be read as an exco-
riation of people who would follow blindly
rather than lead. Summer saw the release
of Aretha Now; on that album’s “Think,”
Franklin turned the words “Freedom, oh
freedom!” into a defiant chant, an insistence
on forward movement at all costs. That
song—that whole album—was a salve for
a torn nation: between the release of Lady
Soul and Aretha Now, the assassination of
Martin Luther King Jr. opened up a wound
in the country that has never fully healed.
Franklin capped off the year with a live
album, and her career continued to climb.
But 1968 was when we needed her most. She
more than delivered. —Stephanie Zacharek
1969
Marsha P. Johnson
Pride over prejudice
In 1969, police raided a gay bar in New York City called the
Stonewall Inn, patrons resisted, and the LGBT-rights move-
ment changed forever. One of the rioters who burst into the
streets was Marsha P. Johnson, a self-described transvestite
and drag queen who helped remind everyone just how
many directions oppression can come from.
Decades later, New York City decided to erect a statue in
her honor. There’s a documentary about her. Fans have tat-
tooed themselves with her image and words. The surge of
interest is due, in part, to the example set by “St. Marsha.”
As she called on fellow activists not to forget issues like
class and homelessness and racism—long before the word
inter sectional was in the zeitgeist—Johnson pushed past
struggles like mental illness, poverty and HIV.
“She was a black, gender-non conforming, feminine-
presenting, sex-working, street-living person,” says Susan
Stryker, visiting professor of women’s, gender and sexuality
studies at Yale University. “Yet she was politically engaged.”
The fervor also comes from a growing acknowledgment
of how LGBT rights in America took shape in the wake
of Stonewall. Accounts don’t agree on what the likable,
unpredictable Johnson did that night. Some say she was
among the first to revolt. Others insist she showed up
later. But many argue it’s beside the point. “I don’t think
whether she threw that first brick matters,” says Darius
Bost, assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University
of Utah. “It’s about the diversity of that legacy. Were trans
women there? Were people of color there?” The answer is
yes: before, during and after. ÑKaty Steinmetz1960sFRANKLIN: RAYMOND DEPARDON—MAGNUM PHOTOS; JOHNSON: THE ALVIN BALTROP TRUST, ©2010, THIRD STREAMING, NY, AND GALERIE BUCHHOLZ, BERLIN/COLOGNE/NEW YORK 65