<P> On the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall uprising occurred . Many identify Johnson as being one of the first to fight back in the clashes with the police during the uprising . Though Johnson is cited by some as having "started" the rebellion, Johnson herself disputed the account in 1987, stating she had arrived at around "2 (o'clock) in the morning", stating "the riots had already started" when she arrived and that the Stonewall building "was on fire" after cops set it on fire . The riots reportedly started at around 1: 20 that morning . According to David Carter, in the book, Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Revolution, it was stated Johnson on the first night, "threw a shot glass at a mirror in the torched bar screaming,' I got my civil rights"', while on the second night, Johnson "climbed on top of a lamppost" and dropped a heavy object into the windshield of a police car . Carter listed Johnson alongside Jackie Hormona and Zazu Nova as being the "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the escalation of the Stonewall uprising . </P> <P> Following the Stonewall uprising, Johnson joined the Gay Liberation Front and participated in the first Christopher Street Liberation Pride rally on the first anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion in June 1970 . One of Johnson's most notable direct actions occurred when she and fellow GLF members staged a sit - in protest at Weinstein Hall at New York University in August 1970 where administrators had canceled a dance where they found that it was sponsored by gay organizations . Shortly after that, she and close friend Sylvia Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) organization (initially titled Street Transvestites Actual Revolutionaries), and the two of them were a visible presence at gay liberation marches and other radical political actions . In 1973, Johnson and Rivera were banned from participating in the gay pride parade by the gay and lesbian committee who were administering the event stating they "weren't gonna allow drag queens" at their marches claiming they were "given them a bad name". Their response was to march defiantly ahead of the parade . During one LGBT rally in the early' 70s, a reporter asked her why she was there, Johnson shouted to the microphone, "Darling, I want my gay rights now!" </P> <P> During another incident around this time, which landed Johnson in court, she was confronted by police officers for hustling in New York, and when they went to apprehend her, she hit them with her handbag, which contained two bricks . When Johnson was asked by the judge why she was hustling, Johnson explained she was trying to secure enough money for her husband's tombstone . During a time when same - sex marriage was illegal in the United States, the judge asked her what "happened to this alleged husband", Johnson responded, "Pigs killed him". Initially sentenced to 90 days in prison for the assault, Johnson's lawyer eventually convinced the judge to sent her to Bellevue instead . </P> <P> With Rivera, Johnson established the S.T.A.R. house, the first shelter for gay and trans street kids in 1972, and paid the rent for it with money they made themselves as sex workers . Marsha was a "drag mother" of STAR House, getting together food and clothing to help support the young drag queens, trans women, gender nonconformists and other gay street kids living on the Christopher Street docks or in their house on the Lower East Side of New York . The S.T.A.R. House was short - lived but became a legendary model for future generations . </P>

Who threw the first brick in the stonewall riots