JUNE 3

Josephine Baker was an internationally famous dancer - some have called her the Beyonce of her time! She was once the biggest and the richest black female entertainer in the world. But she was so much more than a successful, wealthy performer. She was a SPY.

Baker used her fame to get into important parties and gatherings throughout Europe and North Africa during World War II. She mingled with Presidents and Army Generals, and overheard important war strategy information. Baker would write down the secrets in invisible ink on sheets of music, and then give the intelligence to the French Resistance. No one ever suspected this glamorous star to be and active spy!

After the war ended, Josephine Baker purchased Château des Milandes, a castle in the south of France. It was here that she raised her 13 multi-cultural adopted children, who she called "The Rainbow Tribe."

Though she became a French citizen in 1937, Baker was a Civil Rights Activist in America in the 1960s. She was one of the few women who spoke at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where she compared her life as a black woman in the United States and in Europe:

"You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.”

After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., his widow Coretta Scott King offered Baker a leadership position in the Civil Rights Movement. She declined so that she could take care of her children.

In 1975, Baker had a 50th anniversary tour planned to celebrate her half-century in show business. Early into the tour, on April 12, she died of natural causes. Baker was given a full French military funeral, the only American-born woman to ever receive this honor.

On November 11, 2021, Joesphine Baker was interred in The Pantheon in Paris, France, the first American and the first Black woman to receive this honor.

There is a fantastic picture book about Josephine Baker, titled Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. It is written by Patricia Hruby Powell, and illustrated by Christian Robinson (my favorite children's book illustrator). After reading that, you can take a trip to the south of France and visit the Château des Milandes, which is now a museum open to the public. Or you could stay a little closer to home and view La Baker (1977), a painting by Loïs Mailou Jones, on view at the MFA.

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