She was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was born to two performer parents, but her vaudeville drummer father abandoned the family shortly after Josephine was born. Growing up, Josephine Baker witnesses racism all around her. She experienced it in her own treatment working as a cleaning lady and a nanny, in her hometown, she also witnessed the race riots of 1917. I personally feel many history books forget about, but it was a big deal! Read about it here.
Josephine did get work as a performer in the United States, even bringing her own special comedic touch to the original Shuffle Along. However, the color of her skin limited her opportunities and audiences in the United States were racially segregated. As soon as Josephine was old enough, she left the intolerant United States, and move to France where racial integration and diversity was welcomed and celebrated in the the arts community.
In France, Josephine Baker became one of the most popular and highest paid performers in all of Europe. She had admirers ranging from e e cummings to Pablo Picasso. She was hailed as the "Black Venus" or the "Black Pearl." It was the high of the jazz age, and the French couldn't get enough of this quirky American chorus girl, especially after they saw her dance around in a skirt made of nothing but 16 bananas at the Folies Bergere Music Hall in 1926.
She was the toast of the town and life may have seemed as bubbly as a glass of champagne. In 1936, she decided to ride this wave of success but to the United States, hoping to receive a warm welcome, but instead was greeted with hostility, fear, and racism. As so many blacks who experienced success outside of the continental United States had realized before and would realize after, many Americans had hardened their hards towards the black community and, while happy to applaud for them on a stage, wouldn't sit next to them on a bus. Disheartened, Josephine quickly took her million dollar smile that could light up a room back to France.
And then World War II broke out. Like Bob Hope, Jospehine Baker would entertain troops abroad wearing little more than her dazzling smile. Josphone Baker also went further. She joined the French Resistance! Because she was a performer, she could move around countries easily. She would carry information form France to England about various harbours, airfields, and German troop occupation in France. She smuggled notes written in invisible ink on her sheet music and in her (I can only imagine very bedazzled) underwear! She helped the allied forces win the war in very brave and very creative fashion! So important were her actions that the French government awarded her the Croix de Guerre, Rosette de La Resistance, and Charles de Gaulle made her a Chevalier de La Region de L'honneur.
Needless to say her wartime heroices made her an even BIGGER and more respectable star in France, and the United States invited her to perform for her native crowd. However, when she arrived in the United States, she found little progress had been made in the Civil Rights movement. This war hero and star of the stage and screen was denied hotel reservations in 36 hotels because of the color of her skin! The Stork Club in Manhattan refused her service. She discovered that the audiences she was to perform for were segregated. She flat out refused to perform for segregated audience. It became a clause in her contract. One club in Miami even offered her $10000 to perform for an all white audience and she refused. The demand for her performances and her stubborn refusal to perform for an all white audience, forced nightclubs to open their doors to all colors, including the Miami club, taking a small step to the end of segregation in the United States. This was probably much braver than it seems in retrospect today. She actually received threatening calls from KKK members, which she proclaimed did not frighten her. (She had served in the French resistance - she had faced the Nazis - she could face the KKK!) She became active active in the NAACP. She was so influential, she was actually asked to take over the leadership position after Martin Luther King, Jr's death. This was an honor she refused, because she felt her children were too young to be put in danger of losing their mother.
Speaking her children, when in this story did she have time to be pregnant? She never had a biological child of her own. Instead she created a beautiful family she called The Rainbow Tribe. It consisted of 12 adopted children, from 12 different countries, who were 12 different colors. She wanted to prove that children of "different ethnicities and different religions" could be brothers. This actually became the model for celebrities like Angelina Jolie. At the time, racial integration was more rare, mixed race marriages much more scandalous, and blacks weren't even allowed to use the same bathroom as whites. Have children adopted from Finland to Japan to Venezeula definitely made a statement.
Josephine eventually moved back to France where she passed away at the age of 68. She got to see quite a bit of change in the world, and helped the US take a giant leap forward in terms of accepting people of colors. She was someone who made America great, but sadly, was treated so poorly by many Americans, she simply ended up representing America in grand fashion Europe. This one quirky black American showgirl in France once helped bring down Hitler, stood up to and helped change the racist mindset of her home country, and showed the world that children of all different ethnicities and religions can truly be brothers. Let's continue to make America great for people like Josephine Baker!
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