Josephine Baker never let reality hold her back. She brightened her drab existence in the black ghetto of St Louis with the shows she saw at the Negro theater in her home town. She memorized every song, dance and skit she saw; practiced them in her moments alone and performed them for her siblings and the neighborhood children. A trombone player was needed by the Jones family quartet? Josephine (known by her nickname, “Tumpy”) learned how to play the trombone and toured the Strawberry Road Circuit with them. She was not good enough to be in the show? She was happy to travel with Clara Smith and the Dixie Steppers as Ms. Smith’s dresser/companion. And thus, she was able to leave the harsh reality of her life in St. Louis and begin her career in theater at the age of 13. By the time Josephine was 19 years old, she was an up-and-coming star of the black vaudeville circuit as a comic chorus girl. She was featured in Noble and Sissle’s “Shuffle Along,” Broadway’s first all-Black hit. Her work in that show led to her being cast as the star of “La Revue Negre,” an American-produced show that was to run in Paris, France. It was 1925. The Roaring 20’s had brought all of its jazz to the French people who were entranced by the exoticism and eroticism of all African art and music. Imagine that you are a 19-year-old black girl who is barely literate but full of hopes, dreams and confidence and you step off the boat in a country that lets you eat in any restaurant, sleep in any hotel, shop in any store, live in any neighborhood. After growing up under the Jim Crow oppression of the United States, every dream of equality is suddenly within your grasp. It is a new reality. The young Josephine loved France and France adored her. For the rest of her life, Josephine claimed that it was France who made her because it was France who first loved her. She never lived in the United States again.

Josephine tried to launch a career in the U.S., but she simply could not accept the racism she faced at home. She was conflicted about that.  She resented how she was treated here but was always plagued by the thought of how all American Negroes must suffer daily. 

Josephine played to sold-out venues all over the globe but was not welcome in the U.S. Americans heard stories about her but had never seen her. (The one exception was her engagement with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1936 which was, by everyone’s account, an artistic disaster.) Josephine Baker was notorious: one of the most beautiful and desired women in the world, hobnobbing with royalty and world leaders, wearing gowns by Balenciaga, Poirot, Chanel, Dior, and Balmain. Americans knew about her menagerie of pets – the most famous being her Cheetah Chiquita which she adorned with a diamond-encrusted collar – if not about her business success with her Chez Josephine nightclub and her hair product Bakerfix.  African-Americans joined the rest of the world that marveled at her effort to prove human brotherhood through the adoption of 12 toddlers of different ethnicities. She called them her “Rainbow Tribe.” Her celebrity was unparalleled. Yet she and “her people” continued to be subjected to the degrading humiliation of Jim Crow while the rest of the world moved on. That is, until 1951, when Josephine Baker refused to sign a contract to perform in a segregated venue in Miami, Florida. The club owner finally succumbed to her demands, doubting that any Negroes would show up where they had never been welcomed before, only to discover that he had a sold-out run for integrated audiences without any racial incident. And Josephine discovered that her people could finally see her perform in her home country and that they loved her. Not only did Baker integrate venues in the U.S., she applied pressure to the U.S. government to outlaw segregation by speaking out against the racism that existed in our country. 

She spoke out in the U.S. but also in other countries. Josephine traveled widely, was respected, interviewed and quoted everywhere she went. The US government could do little to stop her because she was a French citizen. (The US had revoked her American citizenship when she married a Frenchman. It was our law regarding American women marrying foreign men.) Josephine had become a hero to African Americans. The NAACP honored her by naming May 20, 1951 “Josephine Baker Day” in Harlem, celebrating her with parades, luncheons, and galas. And in 1963, she was the only woman to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She was an international celebrity who was finally a hero in her own country.  Her celebrity gave her power and influence and she used it.

1906 – Born in St. Louis, Missouri, the first child of Carrie McDonald, a washerwoman

1919 – Leaves home at 13 to travel with Clara Smith and the Dixie Steppers

1925 – Travels to France at 19 to perform in Caroline Dudley’s show, La Revue Nègre, and becomes a star 

1926 – At 20, meets “Pepito” Abatino, her lover and manager, who changes her stage persona

1937 – Marries Jean Lion and becomes a French citizen

1939 – Joins the French Resistance and becomes a wartime spy at 33 

1950 – Begins adopting her “Rainbow Tribe” at 44

1951 – Refuses to perform to segregated audiences in the United States; begins speaking out about racism in the United States

1963 – Speaks at the March on Washington

1969 – Loses her chateau, Les Milandes, and is given a home by Princess Grace of Monaco

1975 – Dies at age 68 from a brain hemorrhage three days after a triumphant comeback in Paris. Princess Grace has her buried in Monaco.

2021- Inducted into the Panthéon, but her remains stay in Monaco

“I cannot work where my people cannot go. It’s as simple as that.”

“I shall dance all my life . . .  I would like to die breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.”

“I’m not intimidated by anyone.”

“I have never really been a great artist. I have been a human being that has loved art which is not the same thing.” 

“Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life.”

“The white imagination is sure something when it comes to blacks.”

Josephine: The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase (1993)

Readable and entertaining compilation of the most reliable information about his amazing mother.

Josephine by Josephine Baker and Jo Bouillon, translated by Mariana Fitzpatrick (1977)

Their story, in their own words, giving a marvelous feel for who Josephine and her last husband were.

The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy by Peggy Caravantes (2015)

The full story, well written, illustrated with interesting photographs for young adults.

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell with illustrations by Christian Robinson (2014)

Great fun illustrations in a good biography for young adults; interspersed with lively quotes from Josephine herself.

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis (2022) 

Replete with details about this period of her life, the first book in English about her wartime adventures as a spy.