Civil rights activist and American-born entertainer Josephine Baker has officially become the first black woman to be honored at France’s Panthéon.
Baker was awarded France’s most esteemed honor last Wednesday in Paris. The Panthéon mausoleum received Baker over 45 years after her death. French President Emmanuel Macron lauded Baker as a mother, entertainer, civil rights fighter, and war hero.
Josephine Baker’s Brief History
Freda Josephine McDonald Baker was born on the 3rd of June 1906 in St Louis, Missouri. Although she struggled with poverty growing up, she thrived.
Josephine Baker knew hard work from a young age. She cleaned houses and babysat wealthy white families’ children. These families, in turn instructed her to “be sure not to kiss the baby”. She also took on a waitressing job. She had to drop out of school early and, at the age of 13, married Willie Wells for a brief period. At the age of 15, she remarried in 1921. Although she divorced her then-husband, Will Baker, she maintained his family name.
Despite being married four times, Baker avoided being financially dependent on a man.
Baker toured the US and performed comical splits. She eventually became a chorus girl in the first successful black musical, ‘Shuffle Along’. She fled racial segregation in the US during the 1920s and went to Paris in the year 1925. From then on, she became well-loved as a singer and dancer. Her sometimes ‘scandalous’ costumes (one of which involved a skirt made of fake bananas) and her unique dancing style drew much attention from the public.
France Honors Josephine Baker
After marrying Jean Lion, she became a French citizen. Her career also bloomed in France ‒ as did her patriotism towards the country. She participated in the French Resistance during World War II and was made a sublieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary of the French Air Force.
She worked for France’s counter-intelligence services against the Nazis. Throughout her service, she attained intelligence on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and then sent reports to London via the invisible ink written in her music sheets.
She earned a medal for her work for the Allies.
“She broke down barriers. She became part of the hearts and minds of French People.”
“She broke down barriers,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during the official ceremony. “[And] she became part of the hearts and minds of French people… Josephine Baker, you enter the Panthéon because while you were born American, deep down there was no one more French than you.”
Baker’s remains are currently in Monaco, but a plaque on a cenotaph stands in the Panthéon to commemorate her presence. 2013 brought on the first proposal to lay Baker to rest in the Panthéon. However, France’s recent struggle with racism has revived conversations about this.
Several critics have met the decision to induct Baker into the Panthéon with some resistance. They claim that honoring her does not take away the current struggle France faces when it comes to racism against French citizens of Arab or African origin.
Josephine Baker is the 6th woman and the first woman of color to be lauded in the Panthéon. Today, she is honored alongside the likes of Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, and Voltaire.
Patriot, Activist, and Lifelong Lover of the Arts
Baker loved singing and dancing all her life. She attended her first live theatre performance at the tender age of 9.
As writer Laurent Kupferman described: “[S]he knew immediately that that was what she wanted to do.”
“She knew immediately that that was what she wanted to do.”
Baker lived with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon, in a French chateau together with their 12 adopted children. She called her children her “rainbow tribe”, having come from various racial backgrounds and cultures.
Financial difficulties led this dedicated mother to continue to perform to support her family. Despite the bank foreclosing her home in 1969, Baker continued to perform.
Her participation in the arts depicts a resistance against racial discrimination, even today. Even as a child, she witnessed violence against black people. She claimed that her hometown “had a terrible effect on me”.
She addressed the crowd at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. “When I was a child…they burned me out of my home,” she said. “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.”
“I don’t like the word ‘hatred’. We weren’t put on Earth for that; more to understand and love each other.”
Baker devoted her life and art to the concept of inclusivity.
“I don’t like the word ‘hatred’,” she told a French interviewer. “We weren’t put on earth for that; more to understand and love each other.”
Josephine Baker passed away due to a stroke in 1975. She collapsed after performing at a concert in Paris. The world paid her tribute during her funeral and gave her military honors.
