From Segregation to the Panthéon: The Remarkable Life of Josephine Baker
I’ll confess that it was an episode of Gossip Girl that reignited my interest in Josephine Baker. However, I remember seeing part of The Josephine Baker Story in the early 1990s. Like the other subjects in my Radicals, Renegades, and Rebels series, Josephine Baker was never just one thing. She was a dazzling singer, a fearless dancer, a wartime spy, and a civil rights warrior – a life too bold to fit into one role.
Pre-Paris, 1906-1925
Before she dazzled Paris, Josephine Baker was Freda Josephine McDonald, born into poverty in St. Louis in 1906. Instability, racism, and a strained relationship with her mother marked her childhood. She started working at age eight, doing laundry and cleaning homes for white families—one of whom once burned her hands for touching the laundry.
By her teens, she had run away from home, joined traveling performance troupes, and survived by dancing on the streets and playing comedic roles in vaudeville shows. She had married twice by the age of fifteen and kept the surname from her second husband, Willie Baker.
Her natural talent, sharp wit, and expressive dancing got her noticed backstage during the production of Shuffle Along, a hit Black musical. Eventually, she found her way into the chorus line—where she stole the spotlight with the mix of precision and comic flair that would become her signature. La Revue Negre was a variety show that mixed jazz music, dance, and comedy, using exoticized ideas of Black culture. When La Revue Nègre offered her a spot in its Paris production, she took it—and left the country that had barely tolerated her to become a sensation in one that was ready to be dazzled. While the show leaned heavily on stereotypes, Josephine transformed the stage into a showcase of wit, brilliance, and rebellious energy, flipping the script on how Europeans perceived Black performers..
Paris 1925-1939
Josephine took Paris by storm, becoming the first Black international superstar. Her signature song was “J’ai deux amours” – “I have two loves, my country and Paris.” Her performances blended song, dance, and her persona into a movement, not just a performance.
In 1937, Josephine married a French citizen, through which she gained French citizenship. After her marriage, she formally renounced her American citizenship. While she never publicly stated her reasons for doing so, her later statements and lifelong activism suggest the move was more than just administrative. She often spoke about the contrast between her treatment in France and the treatment she had received in the United States, once saying, “I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee.” Whether or not she intended the renunciation as a political act, it reflected the reality that France had given her opportunities, recognition, and respect that America had withheld.
The Spy Who Sang for Freedom
Josephine used her fame as a cover to gather intelligence for the French Resistance during WWII. She attended many diplomatic events as a celebrity, as did enemy officials and Axis sympathizers. Because she was fluent in French and English, she was able to eavesdrop on conversations and pass along what she heard. She smuggled secrets written in “invisible ink” on sheet music and carried messages pinned in her underwear.
As an entertainer, she also traveled to perform. Josephine performed in Portugal, Morocco, and other French colonies . While in those countries, she met with resistance contacts and relayed messages. She also housed Free French fighters, Resistance members, and Jewish refugees in her home at Chateau des Milandes.
For Josephine’s part in France’s victory, she received the Croix de Guerre, the Rosette de la Resistance, and the Legion d’Honneur. These were not symbolic nods to her celebrity; the nation of France bestowed them for real operational impact and bravery.
France Between the Wars
While it is true that Josephine Baker found greater freedom than she experienced in the United States, we need to understand that it was in large part due to her talent and celebrity. French audiences were fascinated by what they saw as exoticism. They celebrated Black performers in part because of stereotypes and fantasies tied to colonial attitudes. But when Black individuals tried to enter traditional professions or assert social parity, the same ideals of liberte’, egalite’, fraternite’ weren’t always extended. The myth of “racial blindness” gave cover to real structural inequities, which didn’t look like Jim Crow, but which were still very real.
It’s tempting to view Josephine Baker’s success in France as a triumph over racism—but that’s only part of the story. While she escaped the raw brutality of American segregation, she stepped into a society that still viewed Blackness through a colonial, exoticized lens. France offered her a stage, but not necessarily a seat at the table.
Post-Paris 1939-1950s
Josephine Baker returned to the United States not to reclaim fame, but to make a point. In the 1950s and 60s, she used the international celebrity she had built abroad to quietly challenge segregation at home. Refusing to perform for segregated audiences, she helped push open doors in the Jim Crow South, starting with a historic 1951 performance in Miami. Her appearances were temporary but intentional—meant to show that a Black woman could command respect on the world stage and would not accept second-class treatment in her country of birth.
What made her presence even more powerful was what she wore: not just glamorous gowns, but sometimes her French military uniform—complete with medals earned during her work with the French Resistance in World War II. Josephine Baker wasn’t just an entertainer; she was a decorated war hero.
Her status gave her moral authority and quiet power. At the 1963 March on Washington, she stood before the crowd not as a headliner, but as a veteran of a different kind of fight—one who had risked her life for freedom abroad and returned to ask why that same freedom was still being rationed at home.
Return to Paris 1960s – 1975
In 1975, after years of financial and personal hardship, Josephine Baker returned to the spotlight for a highly anticipated performance celebrating her 50 years in show business. The show, titled Josephine, opened in Paris at the Bobino Theater and was a triumphant retrospective of her career, attended by celebrities, dignitaries, and admirers from around the world. Reviews were glowing—she was radiant, full of energy, and once again captivating the city that had first embraced her. Just days after opening night, however, Baker suffered a cerebral hemorrhage (or brain aneurysm) in her sleep. She was found unresponsive in her apartment on April 10, 1975, and died later that day at the age of 68. Her funeral drew thousands and included full French military honors—a final tribute to the woman who had entertained millions, fought for freedom, and lived fearlessly on her own terms.
In 2021, Josephine Baker became the first Black woman and the first American-born individual inducted into France’s Panthéon—an honor reserved for the nation’s most revered figures. She now rests among philosophers, scientists, and revolutionaries, not for her stardom alone, but for the courage she showed on and off the stage, in war and in the fight for dignity.
Your Turn
Josephine Baker’s life certainly fits all the titles of Radicals, Renegades, and Rebels. She was a singer, a spy, a symbol, and a survivor who shattered every mold. But her life invites a couple of questions.
First, as an entertainer, she was afforded a much richer life that was unavailable to Blacks even in France. As a society today in the United States, do we do the same thing? Do I as an individual? Do you?
Second, when we reduce someone to their celebrity status, what do you think we might be overlooking? Drop a comment in the section below the “Related Posts” bar and give me your ideas.
If you’re interested in reading more about this remarkable woman, here are a couple of links:
Josephine Baker | National Women’s History Museum
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