How Josephine Baker became a World War II spy and activist for African Americans
Born into poverty, Josephine Baker reached heights beyond what could have been possible for an African-American woman between the 1920s and 1960s. She was a polarising force throughout her life as a performer and activist. Seen as a threat to the United States for speaking out against race discrimination, she was loved in France - a country she performed in and would later call home, and whose people honoured her for her bravery during World War II.
Instilling fear in one nation, she captivated audiences in another.
Who was Josephine Baker?
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri.
Her mother was adopted by formerly enslaved people of Native American and African descent. Josephine never learned the true identity of her father. She and everyone around her suspected he was a white man but her mother took that information to the grave. This theory seems plausible as her mother was admitted to an all-white female hospital for six weeks and gave birth to Josephine there. It is also said that she had worked for a German family right before she got pregnant.
As a child, Baker earned a living for her poverty-stricken family by working as a domestic maid. Eventually, she began giving short dance performances on the streets of St. Louis.
Baker’s teen years were filled with street performances with various groups. As a teen, she went through two marriages, the latter one giving her the name Baker, which she kept as it was associated with her growing success as a dancer.
By the age of 19, she went on tour in Paris and became famous for her practically nude performance wearing only a banana skirt. This photograph became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.
She found her success touring Europe and became a French citizen in 1937.
Josephine Baker during World War II
During the outbreak of World War II, Josephine played an important role collecting information on German troops at parties she attended.
Her career as an entertainer allowed her to move around Europe carrying secret information on her music sheets with invisible ink. After the war, she received the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance - two important recognitions by the French government of her bravery.
Josephine Baker and the Civil Rights Movement
In the United States, Baker was a supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and would hold speeches about segregation wherever she went on tour.
She would adapt her words, addressing the nation's different ethnic groups to express how the US was treating their own people. She also refused to perform in segregated places in the United States.
Unless there is a halt to the waves of lynching, electrocutions without proof, collective aggression and other beauties of the “American way of life”, it means that all the blood spilled in the last war has been in vain. The apparent enemies of Hitler see his triumph multiplied in the Southern United States.
Josephine Baker, 1952, Buenos Aires
Her constant criticism of American racism was deemed a threat to the international relations of a country trying to project 'individual rights and liberty in America' as well as the benefits of democracy over communism.
In the 1950s, US embassies in various South American countries made it difficult for her to enter and perform in Latin America if she did not stop her political speeches. But because she had French citizenship, they could not seize her passport and stop her from travelling as they did with other African Americans calling out the country for its discrimination.
Josephine Baker had a vision of change she wanted to see in the world and fought to make that change. As well as using her stage as a platform to raise awareness, she also adopted twelve children all from different nationalities to prove that despite physical differences, children of different backgrounds could love each other as siblings.
As of 30 November 2021, Josephine Baker became the first Black woman to enter the Pantheon, one of the highest honours that France can bestow on its citizens.
Further reading
- Josephine Baker, Racial Protest, and the Cold War by Mary L. Dudziak, 1994, The Journal of American History, 81(2).
- Josephine Baker (1906-1975) by Arlisha R. Norwood, 2017, National Women's History Museum
- Josephine Baker on Wikipedia