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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

7. NAACP Bigwig, and Controversy

Josephine Baker during the 1963 March on Washington. Washington Post

Baker’s stand against racism and segregation won her the admiration of the NAACP, leading it to declare Sunday, May 20^th, 1951, “Josephine Baker Day”. She was also presented with an NAACP lifetime membership by Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche. However, her assertiveness and outspokenness alarmed many. By 1951, Baker was an accomplished celebrity and a decorated war heroine, oozing self confidence – not exactly what many expected of black women. Some black people even shunned her, fearing that she would harm the cause by demanding too much, too soon. Nonetheless, Baker persisted in supporting civil rights, even from abroad. In 1963, after she was finally allowed back into the US, she spoke at the March on Washington, at Martin Luther King’s side. Wearing her Free French uniform, with her wartime decorations and medals, Baker was the only official female speaker at the event.

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.