It was 1950 when Senator Joseph McCarthy said President Harry Truman's State Department had been infiltrated by gays, likely even homosexual communists (As he believed all gays were communists).

That kicked of the McCarthy Era gay witch hunts in America. In San Francisco the McCarthy era ushered in a period of intense police harassment of gay people and gay establishments.

California's sodomy law was still the law of the land. Gay men and women were arrested on a number of charges used to keep homosexuals in the closet and hidden.

Against this oppression, Sarria gave the city's gay community hope with a dash of laughter.

His impromptu arias would contain lyrics that would warn people of police entrapment schemes if he learned of them.

He also coined some of the first known statements to instill gay pride with such slogans as: "There is nothing wrong with being gay -- the crime is getting caught" or "United we stand, divided they catch us one by one."

Sometimes Sarria would lead the bar's patrons and drag entertainers to the nearby jail to serenade the gay people being held there.

The Black Cat's fame and Sarria's moral-boosting campaigns eventually led the police to attempt to close the bar in 1949 on the grounds that it attracted gay people.

The owners and clients, however, sued and in a decision by the California Supreme Court, which ruled that a bar could not be closed simply due to the clients it attracted

.