Dancer, Film-Star, Spy And Activist, Josephine Baker Was Someone That Lived A Full Life
- U I Team
- May 20
- 6 min read
Known to many as the dancer who took Paris by storm in the 1920s, Josephine Baker’s story is one of dazzling reinvention and fearless resistance. From the backstreets of St. Louis to the grand stages of Paris, from clandestine wartime missions to podiums of civil rights rallies, her life traced a path few dared to imagine—let alone follow. Much more than a performer draped in feathers or bananas, she was a spy, a civil rights activist, and, finally, a national hero laid to rest in the Panthéon, among the most revered figures in French history.
A Childhood of Hardship
Born Freda Josephine McDonald on 3 June 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker came into the world amid hardship. Her mother, Carrie McDonald, had once dreamed of dancing on the vaudeville stage, but found work as a washerwoman. Her father, Eddie Carson, a vaudeville drummer, soon abandoned them. Carrie later remarried and had several more children, leaving young Josephine to help support the family from the age of eight. She scrubbed floors and babysat for wealthy white families, often enduring cruelty and humiliation.
At 13, Baker ran away from home and found work as a waitress in a club. She soon entered into a brief marriage with a man named Willie Wells, though it lasted only weeks. But her path forward had already begun to take shape—through movement, music, and the stage.
Breaking Out Through Dance
By her early teens, Baker had begun to dance in the streets and in clubs, eventually joining touring troupes like the Jones Family Band and the Dixie Steppers. She remarried in 1921 to Willie Baker, whose surname she would retain for the rest of her life. Two years later, she appeared in the musical Shuffle Along, where her comic timing and vivacity made her stand out. In New York, she gained further acclaim in Chocolate Dandies and at the Plantation Club alongside Ethel Waters.
Then, in 1925, came the moment that would redefine her life and legacy. Baker travelled to Paris to join La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Her performance—barely dressed, full of energy, rhythm, and comic sensuality—captivated French audiences. When she performed the Danse Sauvage in a feathered skirt with her partner Joe Alex, a star was born.
The Muse of Modern Paris
It was at the Folies Bergère the following year that Baker cemented her image, dancing in La Folie du Jour wearing little more than a skirt made of 16 artificial bananas. Erotic, comic, and commanding, she became one of Europe’s highest-paid and most photographed entertainers. Intellectuals, artists and designers alike were enchanted: Pablo Picasso, Christian Dior, Frida Kahlo, and CoCo Chanel all took inspiration from her. Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.” Picasso described her as “tall, coffee skin, ebony eyes, legs of paradise, a smile to end all smiles.”
She took to singing in 1930, and became one of the first Black women to star in a major film with Zou Zou (1934), followed by Princesse Tam-Tam. The earnings from her European fame enabled her to buy an estate—Les Milandes—in southwestern France, where she moved her family from St. Louis.
A Spy in the Shadows
Despite her adoration in France, Baker sought success back home. In 1936, she returned to the United States to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies. But racism reared its head, and she was met with hostility. She soon returned to France disillusioned. There, she married French industrialist Jean Lion and became a naturalised French citizen.
When war broke out in 1939, Baker’s celebrity allowed her to move among diplomats and enemy officials without suspicion. Recruited as an “honourable correspondent” by France’s Deuxième Bureau (military intelligence), she gathered information at embassies and clubs, passing secrets to the French Resistance. Notes were written in invisible ink on her sheet music. On occasion, she even hid documents in her underwear.
She sheltered Resistance fighters at Les Milandes, secured visas, and transported intelligence to neutral countries like Portugal. Later, she moved to North Africa, continuing her espionage work while battling serious health issues. Even while recovering from a severe infection and undergoing a hysterectomy, she insisted on touring to entertain Allied troops. With no formal entertainment corps for the Free French, she and her entourage performed for soldiers without charging admission—insisting no civilians be allowed in.
In recognition of her bravery, Baker was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by Charles de Gaulle.
The Rainbow Tribe and a Life of Advocacy
After the war, Baker returned to Les Milandes, now married to conductor Jo Bouillon. Together, they adopted 12 children from around the world—her so-called “rainbow tribe.” She opened her home to the public to demonstrate the possibility of racial harmony through shared domestic life.
But the United States was calling once more, this time with the siren cry of the civil rights movement. In the 1950s and 60s, Baker returned frequently, refusing to perform before segregated audiences. She famously turned down a $10,000 offer from a Miami club until it agreed to integrate.
In 1951, she clashed with New York’s Stork Club over discriminatory service. Grace Kelly, present at the time, walked out arm-in-arm with Baker and vowed never to return. Their friendship endured, and when Baker later faced financial hardship, Kelly—now Princess Grace of Monaco—offered her a villa and financial support.
Baker’s advocacy deepened. The NAACP declared 20 May 1951 “Josephine Baker Day.” She campaigned for the life of Willie McGee, a Black man controversially convicted of rape in Mississippi. Despite her efforts, McGee was executed. Baker’s forthrightness and sensual past alienated some, who feared her presence might harm the civil rights cause. But she remained undeterred.
A Voice at the March on Washington
In 1963, Baker joined Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington. Wearing her Free French uniform and medals, she stood as the only official female speaker, introducing “Negro Women for Civil Rights.” Her remarks were powerful:
“I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents… But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.”
After King’s assassination, Coretta Scott King asked Baker to take his place as leader of the movement. Baker declined, saying her children still needed their mother.
The Final Curtain
Baker’s return to the American stage in 1973 at Carnegie Hall was deeply symbolic. Greeted with a standing ovation, she wept. The warmth of the reception marked a healing of sorts between Baker and her homeland.
Two years later, in April 1975, she starred in Joséphine à Bobino 1975, a retrospective in Paris celebrating 50 years of her career. The production, financed by Princess Grace, Prince Rainier, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was met with rapturous reviews.
On 12 April 1975, just days after opening night, Baker died from a cerebral haemorrhage. She was 68.
Her funeral at L’Église de la Madeleine drew more than 20,000 mourners. She became the first American-born woman to receive full French military honours at her funeral. After a private family service, she was buried at Monaco’s Cimetière de Monaco.
Panthéon Honours
In 2021, a campaign led by writer Laurent Kupferman successfully petitioned for Baker’s symbolic reburial at the Panthéon in Paris, the resting place of France’s most venerated citizens. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the honour, making her the first Black woman enshrined there.
Though her remains stayed in Monaco at the request of her family, a ceremonial casket containing soil from St. Louis, Paris, the South of France and Monaco was carried through Paris by the French Air and Space Force on 30 November 2021. She now lies among giants, Curie, Voltaire, Hugo, in the secular temple to the French Republic, and they're lucky to have her.
Sources:
Jean-Claude Baker & Chris Chase, Josephine: The Hungry Heart
Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Josephine Baker in Art and Life
Ean Wood, The Josephine Baker Story
Ralph Blumenthal, Stork Club: America’s Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Café Society
France24.com, “Josephine Baker enters Panthéon”
Smithsonian Magazine, “Josephine Baker’s Unbreakable Will”
Jazz Age Cleopatra (various articles)
