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A Ballerina Who Stabbed an SS Guard With a Stiletto and Other Historic Rebels

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2020 34 min

30. The Superstar Who Joined the Resistance

Relatively few know it, but Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975), the first black person to become a world-famous entertainer, or to star in a major movie, was a resistance heroine. Dubbed the “Creole Goddess”, “Black Pearl”, and “Bronze Venus”, she was an American-born entertainer, renowned dancer, Jazz Age symbol, 1920s icon, and civil rights activist. She moved to France and made it her home. When her adopted homeland was conquered by the Nazis in WWII, Josephine Baker joined the French resistance.

Born into poverty as Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker was forced by her family’s dire financial straits into working since childhood. By age thirteen, she was already performing on stage, and became a chorus girl a year later. She became a hit with audiences, as she injected comedy into her routines.

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.