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40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker

Khalid Elhassan July 2, 2019 24 min

Josephine Baker - Josephine Baker - Chanter L'amour

31. She Became a Runaway Success in Paris

Studio Portrait Of The Dancer Josephine Baker Between 1930 And 1935. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Josephine Baker did relatively well in New York City, but 1920s America was not exactly a great era for black people seeking to realize their full potential. Growing tired of the glass ceiling of racism that capped her career prospects, Baker decided to bet on herself by leaving America in search of greener pastures abroad. In 1925, aged 19, she headed to Paris, where she opened La Revue Negre. In the City of Light, she became an immediate hit with her erotic dancing, performed semi naked.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.