Josephine Baker
A black and white photo of Josephine Baker, a black woman with short black hair tucked into a large feather and crystal headpiece. She wears crystal earrings and bold makeup, posing and smiling into the distance.
“You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can’t go wrong. The world is behind you.”
– Josephine Baker
Thought to be one of the most photographed women of her time, Josephine Baker was a renowned dancer, a singer, a mother, spy, and bisexual Black woman. While there are still people who resist the category of queer for Josephine Baker, with some help from her son, historian Jean-Claude Baker, the truth is clear. Born on June 3, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Baker’s life was never without its share of obstacles. However, an entertainer, an activist, a military woman, and a mother, Josephine Baker wasn’t familiar with the word “stop”; .
Baker’s troubles began when she was quite young. She began working at eight years old to help support her family. Being impoverished, Black, and female in America, she was not treated well by her employers. One woman forced her to sleep in the doghouse and scalded her hands when she made minor mistakes. At thirteen, Baker was forced to marry a man over a decade her senior—one Willie Wells—without her consent. Soon after, she divorced him but was forced to marry again at age fifteen. Baker was forced to grow up faster than any person should, with both employers and men treating her more as a commodity than a human being.
But just as she found hardships, young Baker found success early. She was hired for a vaudeville show at fifteen and moved to New York soon after. She was hired to perform on Broadway and was billed as the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville during her time. Her career was just as fraught as it was fruitful, though. America during the 1920s was an intensely racist place, and even with Baker’s growing fame, she faced it everywhere she went without reprieve. While she spent a good part of her life fighting against racism, becoming friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and other well-known civil rights activists, Baker eventually left America for France. This is not to say that France was free of racism, but Baker found it a more liberating place to live than “America the Beautiful.”
It was in France that Baker’s involvement in World War II began. She found much more fame and respect in France than she had in America, and it had become her home. Both before and during the war, she defended that home. While she was far too well-known to be a soldier, she was just well-known enough to be a spy. While touring, Baker would write information she had gathered on her music sheets in invisible ink and smuggle it across borders in her underwear, counting on her fame to save her from being strip-searched. She had a close relationship with her spy handler, the two beginning an open relationship where they returned to each other as close confidants. When her health troubles began during the war, she would use her bedridden position to set up a secure place for her and her handler to run their covert operations, as no one could be suspected of nefarious activities just because they visited the famous Josephine Baker in the hospital.
Baker would also be vocally anti-Nazi throughout the war, refusing to perform in Paris once it was occupied. When she found a friend of hers had begun doing so, she refused to allow him to visit her in the hospital. In response he began a rumour that Josephine had died, to which she responded:
“There has been a slight error, I am much too busy to die.”
While all this was more than enough to put her in danger, it was not the end of her efforts. She also helped house refugees and revolutionaries in her home and often moved them around by disguising them as a part of her band, using her position to procure papers for queer and Jewish refugees. After the war, she was awarded two of the highest war honours: the Croix de Guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance. Baker’s work was not limited to France, however. She toured the French colonies in North Africa and continued her intelligence gathering there. Even after the war, she wasn’t politically silent. The king in Cairo asked her to perform for his citizens, but Baker refused him due to the country’s lack of support for the movement to free France. Baker also ensured that her audiences were not segregated, no matter where she went, something she had fought for from the beginning of her career.
After the war, Baker did not stop fighting, but she also didn’t stop enjoying herself. For a while, she returned to America, forcing all the clubs she entertained in to open their doors to both white people and people of colour. She made many friends in her post-war years and had many lovers as well. Artist Frida Kahlo fell into both categories. Baker also remained an important part of the American civil rights movement, being the only woman to speak at the march on Washington at the age of 57. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. King’s wife asked Baker to step up as the head of the movement. Baker politely declined as, at the time, she was beginning to take up another task.
She had adopted twelve children from around the world, and after the divorce from her fourth husband, she was raising them alone. This was a heavy financial burden, and she had refused to take payment for much of her charity work including for all of her work during the war including preforming for the troups. Her consistent troubles were ones she faced with her fans' support, both financially and otherwise. Some of the more generous and high rankings of her followers even offered her an island at one point, which Baker politely declined as well, as she did not want to leave her home in France.
Though Baker’s love of France was well known, and she was known for wearing her military uniform often, France was not as generous with their service. They refused her financial aid in her time of crisis and only returned to her side after she had died, giving her the only military funeral for an American woman.
There was a group of people, however, who never left Baker’s side. While her fans remained fickle as she got involved in different political disputes, her two countries both abandon her in different ways at different times. She was married and divorced many times throughout her life; the children she had brought together from all corners of the world stayed strong. They continued to honour her after she died.
While many historians and biographers have denied that Baker was bisexual, her son has since embraced the label, calling Baker a “lover of women” in her biography, and never attempting to deny her many affairs with women throughout her life. This openness, one must believe, is because of love. When one person truly cares for another and wants to keep their legacy, one is honest. Because Jean-Claude Baker had a deeper connection to his mother than most historians had to their object of study, he gave a unique, personal, and honest view of Baker’s life without judgment or censorship.
It is this honesty that many historians have yet to learn and apply to their accounts, but, unsurprisingly, he was leagues ahead of the rest; the woman who raised him changed the world, so much so that her influence can still be seen in popular culture today. Baker loved her world of entertainment but never compromised her values for it. With that same willpower, she managed to raise twelve children on her own and push the rest of the world forward through unbending determination in concert with her legendary charm and talent.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
(1963) Josephine Baker, “Speech at the March on Washington”. (2011, November 3). Blackpast. Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/1963-josephine-baker-speech-march-washington
Croasly, S. (2016, July 6). Exploring the France Josephine Baker Loved. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/travel/josephine-baker-paris-france.html?_r=0
Griffith, J. (2014, December 31). Josephine Baker: From Exotic Dancer to Activist. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141222-from-exotic-dancer-to-activist
Jerkins, M. (2016, June 3). 90 Years Later, The Radical Power of Josephine Baker´s Banana Skirt. Vogue. Retrieved from http://www.vogue.com/13442586/josephine-baker-90th-anniversary-banana-skirt/
Jolley, L. (n.d.). Josephine Baker. The State Historical Society of Missouri. Retrieved from http://shsmo.org/historicmissourians/name/b/baker/
Josephine Baker (n.d.). National Women´s History Museum. Retrieved from https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/josephine-baker/
Lewis, D. (2022). Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy. United States: PublicAffairs.
Onion, R. (2014, April 8). Josephine Baker´s Rainbow Tribe. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2014/04/josephine_baker_s_rainbow_tribe_before_madonna_and_angelina_jolie_the_expat.html
Powell, P. H. (2014). Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. United States: Chronicle Books LLC.
Theile, M. (2009, October 2). Josephine Baker´s Rainbow Tribe. The Spiegel. Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/adopting-the-world-josephine-baker-s-rainbow-tribe-a-652613.html
Weber, B. (2015, January 15). Jean-Claude Baker Dies at 71; Restaurateur Honoured a Chantause. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/nyregion/jean-claude-baker-a-restaurateur-dies-at-71.html
