Sylvia Rivera Reflects on the Spirit of Marsha P Johnson

Sylvia Rivera talks to former nemesis & future good friend filmmaker/activist Randy Wicker during Sylvia Rivera's occupation of the Christopher Street pier.

[Sylvia Rivera] ...times that Marsha gives me a lot of strength to this day.

I gotta keep fighting for somebody.

Because Marsha was a fighter, we were both fighters,

and we, I am a survivor.

Marsha's not here to survive with me.

Marsha unfortunately had to... she passed on

but she's with me in spirit,

and she gives me a lot of hope,

every time I look at that damn river

and I sit there and meditate on the river,

she gives me, I actually feel her spirit

tellin' me "you gotta keep fightin' girl, because it's not time for you to cross...

the River Jordan."

And we were supposed to cross it together!

[ *Randy Wicker * ] ... that's one reason the cops thought that, uh, she committed suicide,

cause she'd been heard saying to somebody in a bar

"cross the River Jordan".

I said she said that 5 times a day.

[ *Sylvia Rivera* ] For years!!!

[ *Randy Wicker* ] Five times a day every day of her life...

[ *Sylvia Rivera* ] For years!!!

There was an incident one time when I lived with her on 12th street,

and she came in, she was at a dance,

and her and Terry [SPELLING?] had to break down the house to her door,

cause I had slit my wrists, and I had lost...

actually it was like... the 4th anniversary gay march,

when I was beat up on stage by Rina Rousseau [SPELLING?],

Barbara Jean [SPELLING?] told them to go ahead and do it,

that's when Jean O'Leary got powerful

and drag queens were no longer needed in the movement...

[ *Randy Wicker* ] Jean O'Leary finally sort of had a scandalous end, you know.

[ *Sylvia Rivera* ] Yes, I understand that, the old tacky bitch!

Oh, I loved her dearly.

But Marsha came home, and she felt that I had done something,

and I had the walls splattered with blood and whatnot,

I got 60 stitches cause I slit up,

and she came home and her and Terry [SPELLING?] were actually the ones that had me sent to the hospital.

And Marsha said "you're not crossing that River Jordan without me, you and I will cross it together".

And when she died...

part of me went with her because one of our pacts were that we would always cross River Jordan together.

And to me, this is the River Jordan, the Hudson River.

And what I did in May, to jump in the river in Yonkers...and when I was...I was really at my wits end,

but then I realized that living again and being able to...

[* Randy Wicker* ] How did that happen to make the New York Times? ...