Josephine Baker
Dubbed the “Creole Goddess”, “Black Pearl”, and “Bronze Venus”, Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) was the first person of color to become a globally famous entertainer and star in a major movie. 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, Josephine Baker joined the French Resistance.
Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, she was raised poor and had to work from an early age. By age 13, she was already performing on stage, and became a chorus girl a year later. Injecting comedy into her routines, she became a hit with audiences. Ambitious and confident in her talent, she refused to accept the strictures and ceiling imposed on her career by the color of her skin in America, so she moved to France, where her career took off in post-WWI Paris.
When WWII broke out, Josephine Baker was recruited by French military intelligence. She had initially expressed support for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, so when the Axis defeated and occupied France, they assumed that she was friendly to their cause. She was not. Taking advantage of the occupiers’ trust, she risked her life spying. Her fame opened doors, and rubbing shoulders with high-ranking Axis personnel, she charmed officials she met in social gatherings to collect information.
As an international entertainer, she had an excuse to travel, and she did, within Nazi-occupied Europe, to neutral Portugal, and to South America, She transported coded messages, written in invisible ink on her music sheets, between the Resistance and the Allies, containing information about German troop concentrations, airfields, harbors, and defenses, and smuggled them beneath the Nazis’ noses. She also hid fugitives in her home, supplying them with forged identification papers and visas obtained through her contacts. Later in the war, she joined the French Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, in which she was commissioned as a lieutenant, and also performed for Allied troops.
In recognition of her wartime exploits and contributions to France, she was named a Chevalier of the Legion d’honeur by Charles De Gaulle, and among the medals awarded her by the French military were the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Resistance with Rosette. Upon her death in 1975, she became the first American woman buried with military honors in France, including a twenty-one gun salute.
