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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

13. A Civil Rights Icon

Josephine Baker’s success in desegregating her audiences transformed her into an early icon of the civil rights movement, that was just beginning to gather steam in the early 1950s. Following her Miami gig, she launched a national tour that stood in stark contrast to her 1936 Broadway experience. Instead of derision and scorn, this time around she had sold out shows, was greeted by enthusiastic audiences, and received rave reviews. It culminated with a parade in Harlem, attended by over 100,000 people, in honor of her receiving the 1951 NAACP “Woman of the Year” award.

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.