Josephine Baker

Ever since I first learned about her, I've been in love. Josephine Baker is a shining beacon of standing in your power and is the very best of humanity. 

Years back I found what I believe is one of her original banana skirts, found in the Follies Berger by Bridget’s Cabinet Antiques. Josephine Baker performed there regularly when in Paris. I constructed a recreation of the iconic skirt to wear on stage for Stripping History Nashville and my beautiful friend Brysonn Legs modeled it as well as the original, so beautifully.

Josephine Baker is going to be interred into the Panthéon in France on November 30th, becoming the first Black woman ever to do so, and only the sixth woman of all time. The Panthéon is a secular monument to national heroes, with roughly 15x more men than women. The five other women interred there are Marie Curie, Genenviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Germain Tillion, Sophie Berthelot, and Simone Veil. 

She was born in St. Louis, MO. as Freda Josephine McDonald to a washerwoman and a vaudeville musician. At a very young age, she was taken out of school to help her mother make ends meet and support her family. She earned a living by watching the children of wealthy whites and cleaning houses. At age 13 she took up a waitressing job at The Old Chauffeur's Club. Her work ethic was instilled in her early and clearly persisted throughout her life. 

She joined the dance troupe The Dixie Steppers at age 16. She had initially been rejected as a chorus girl because she was "too skinny and too dark." Once another dancer left, though it was game on and Ms. Baker moved up in the show. She was a hit right away, and she had them rolling in the aisles every night with her comedic stage presence. She traveled to France and found that her career had limitless possibilities there, whereas in the United States she was continuing to struggle as a Black performer. She performed her infamous and often imitated Banana dance, hitching a ride on a rocket to the moon. She was a wild success, becoming one of the most photographed women in the world and the highest-earning entertainer in Europe by 1927. Even with all of her success and accolades, when she returned to the United States to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies, she was met with so much hate and racism that she returned home to France heartbroken and betrayed by her homeland.

And then WWII brought everything to a screeching halt and she became a fucking SPY! She would travel and entertain the troops in Africa and the Middle East and she would carry secret messages for the French Resistance in her sheet music. She also volunteered with the Red Cross AND in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. When the war ended and she traveled back to the U.S. to perform she was continually met with bigotry and racism. She and her husband were turned away from 36 hotels because of their race. Baker tirelessly fought back, refusing to perform for segregated audiences and gave speeches at historically Black colleges and universities. Not only did she give speeches at HBCU's, but she was also the only woman to speak at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr. After his assassination, Coretta Scott King asked Josephine to take over the Civil Rights Movement. She declined the offer because she had 12 children that needed her and she was worried about what would happen to her should she choose to take on that responsibility. Oh, and those 12 children? They were all adopted, all of them of different ethnicities. She called them her "Rainbow Tribe." 🌈💕😭

To say I love her is putting it too simply. I do my best to follow her lead. She did lead with love didn’t she?

Tell me about one of your personal heroes.