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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

6. Performing in the Eastern Bloc

Josephine Baker was not a communist, but she had nothing against performing in communist countries. In 1966, Fidel Castro invited her to perform in Havana, as the guest of honor and headliner of the Cuban Revolution’s 7^th anniversary celebrations. She put on a spectacular performance at the Teatro Musical de la Habana, that broke attendance records. Two years later, she visited Yugoslavia, where she performed in Belgrade and Skopje – in today’s Serbia and Macedonia, respectively.

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.