José Julio Sarria, a veteran of World War II entered gay history in the 1940s when he began to cover at work, sometimes, for his then boyfriend Jimmy Moore, as a waiter at "The Black Cat" bar on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. In post-World War II San Francisco saw an influx of gay and lesbian discharged veterans that swelled the city's gay communities. While the Castro was still a primarily heterosexual, blue-collar neighborhood, the Black Cat had already developed an international reputation as a gay meeting place. One day while José served drinks and the pianist was playing Bizet's Carmen, he began singing arias from the opera. Soon his arias were a big hit at the Black Cat, and José's reputation for entertainment and performance was born.

With McCarthyism making its heavy hand felt throughout America in the 1950s, social elements that deviated from the lifestyles portrayed on Leave It to Beaver and the I Love Lucy shows began facing increasing political and governmental pressures. 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, José 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 will pick us off one by one."

Perhaps his true signature piece, however, was a tune with which he would nightly to close the bar via a sing-along with the bar's patrons. Together they would sing "God Save Us Nelly Queens." Sometimes José 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 José's morale-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, the justices issued a ruling that a bar could not be closed simply due to the clients it attracted.

Police pressures, entrapment schemes, and raids continued into the 1950s with the gay bars eventually establishing a network to spread warnings of police sting operations. In 1961 José did the heroic deed for which he is best known today: he filed as the first openly gay candidate in the world to run for public office. Running a quiet campaign by word-of-mouth, he sought the position of a San Francisco city supervisor, the same political office won by Harvey Milk 16 years later. Years later, José claimed that his quiet campaign resulted from the lack of any appropriate suits or clothing for a drag queen to go around kissing babies!

Although José did not win in 1961, he shocked both the city's gay and straight communities by gathering a hefty 5,600 votes coming in 9th out of a field of 32 candidates. The realization that a gay voting bloc could wield considerable political clout in San Francisco is cited by a number of political strategists resulting from José's impressive vote tally. Unfortunately, it was not until the 1970s that changes in San Francisco's voting ordinances moved from citywide elections to the election of the Board of Supervisors by district. By the mid-70s when the gay population was concentrating in the Castro district, this change in election laws allowed for a number of minority candidates including the openly gay Harvey Milk to win election. At the time of José's campaign sixteen years prior, he would have been one of the top vote getters to be elected by the entire city.

Ironically, José was the first person to sign on to back Harvey Milk's campaign for city supervisor. At that time other leading gay men and lesbians feared that Milk's openness would endanger gains with the city's existing, heterosexual progressive politicians.

Facing on-going police pressures, the owner of The Black Cat, a straight man who had long kept the bar open against police harassment, closed the bar the day after Halloween in 1963. Within a week, police had closed five other gay bars. In 1963 San Francisco boasted thirty primarily gay and lesbian establishments. By 1964 only eighteen remained.

José and the various gay bar owners, however, did not simply give up hope. In early 1965 the owners united to form the Tavern Guild of San Francisco and put on San Francisco's first large, public drag ball, the Beaux Arts Ball. At its third Ball at the Winterland Ballroom, over 500 lesbians and gay men bravely crossed police lines, braved floodlights and the flashing lights of police photographers to attend this ball. During it, José was named the Queen of the Ball.

Soon José considered - "why be a queen when he could be an empress?" So, he proclaimed himself the Empress of San Francisco. Later, to further enhance this title, Sarria drew upon the legend of the Emperor Joshua Abraham Norton, the fabulously eccentric 19th century San Franciscan miner and rice baron who gained and lost at least one fortune. During his lifetime, Emperor Norton dressed finely and proclaimed himself the Emperor of the United States and Canada, Protector of Mexico. Heir in spirit, if not by law, to this extraordinary man, Sarria named himself the Widow Norton and began annual pilgrimages to Norton's grave in nearly Colma where he, accompanied by the Emperors of San Francisco, drag queens and members of the gay community, would pay their respects with flowers to Sarria's departed "spouse." For the past 30 years José's annual pilgrimage to Joshua's gravesite is full with fanfare, pomp and camp and attended by people from all walks of life from throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The Tavern Guild continued to draw the city's gay community together and began to regularly hold events including its annual drag ball. Eventually this ball marked the annual election of a citywide Empress who succeeded Empress I José and subsequent Empresses. Evolving out of the Tavern Guild, José developed the bylaws and functions of the Imperial Court of San Francisco, a group that sought through drag shows and other functions to raise money for, at first, primarily gay charities. Eventually the position of Emperor and the subsequent male and female lines of assorted princesses, dukes, and countesses were established to run and organize the charitable organization: the older, more prestigious female line for drag queens (and eventually women in traditional female garb) and the male line for men in stereotypical male garb (and eventually women doing "male drag.")

By the early 1970s, the Court system established by José had been franchised to first Vancouver, Canada, and then Portland. Over the next thirty years individual Courts answering to the Widow Norton have spread to nearly seventy areas (some based in cities while others cover whole states or provinces) in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Under José's guidance the Courts have avoided partisan politics by ruling out participation and only supporting bipartisan issues. They have raised considerable funds for needy community charities. This work has ranged considerably. The Imperial Court of Toronto recently raised funds to buy body bags and a burial ground for a more dignified closure to the lives of poor people who died of HIV/AIDS in Tijuana, Mexico. Previous to the Court's help, these people's bodies were often tossed into trash heaps. Similarly in the mid-1980s when no local charity would invest in prevention and care programs related to HIV/AIDS, the Royal Sovereign Imperial Court of All Kentucky raised thousands of dollars to establish the Louisville-based Community Health Trust. Additionally, the Imperial Court of San Francisco along with the California courts raised thousands of dollars and was instrumental in defeating the Briggs Initiative in 1978. Varying, of course, by the size of the community and its chapter court, the Courts annually donate thousands of dollars towards helping their neighbors and especially gay communities.

With courts now established from Hawai'i and 43 courts in the western US, to New York City and 16 courts in the eastern US, six Canadian provinces with 11 courts and one court in Mexico, José's empire has become one of the gay community's little secrets. As a strong grassroots organization interlinked by monarchs that attend the annual coronation balls of other courts, central direction from José and his International Court Council, and now even the Internet, the Court system may well be the strongest if not the only gay organization with as widespread a local base. Today, the International Imperial Court System is the second largest gay and lesbian organization in the world - second only to the Metropolitan Community Church.

José today remains as busy as ever attending his children courts' coronation balls throughout the year. Here at these balls, he is not only the Widow Norton; he is "Mama." He also recently made his major motion picture debut via a cameo appearance in "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar". Having also been featured in the book, The Mayor of Castro Street, Sarria's biography (as dictated to author Michael German) premiered in the spring of 1998 titled "The Empress Is a Man" by Haworth Press. José now resides in Palm Springs, CA, but still returns regularly to his beloved San Francisco. Although he remains the head of the Court system, José has designated heirs-apparent throughout the International Court system to carry on his vision.

For over half a century, José, the one-time "Nightingale of Montgomery Street," has nurtured, protected and guided San Francisco and North America's gay communities through McCarthyism, the backlash against gay rights, AIDS, and even the occasional bad makeup job. He is truly a living hero and role model for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people or anyone who admires courage and optimism against daunting odds.