3/26/2023 0 Comments Josephine from railroad storyUnfortunately, her fame and success had no influence on what was going on outside of the sold-out venues. While in Florida she launched a successful campaign to desegregate the club’s audience and initiated her American tour, except this time around Baker was met with rave reviews and standing room only audiences. where she performed at a Miami, Florida night club, Copa City, and began cementing herself as an activist for the Civil Rights Movement. At the close of the war in 1951, Josephine was invited back to the U.S. Upon departure of America, she was recruited by the French military intelligence and served as a secret agent during WWII where she gathered intel from high-rank military officials and became a liaison for French intelligence. America had treated Josephine the way they care for most of the Blacks during that time and she had enough of the abuse. In 1936 she returned to her birth country to star in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway but was met with rude audiences and cutthroat reviews, with the New York Times referring to her as “The Negro Wench.”Īfter experiencing a harsh reception in her birth country, the broken-hearted Josephine returned to France abandoning her US citizenship and became a permanent resident of Europe in 1937. Louis.īaker was adored in Europe, but America didn’t have the same admiration. Within a few years of arriving in Paris, Josephine Baker was noted as one of the highest paid entertainers of Europe and eventually sent for her family in St. And even famed artist, Picasso was allured by her beauty depicting her in his painting, “she had legs of paradise” he cited. Instantly she became a huge success, Ernest Hemingway referred to her as “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw. French audiences fell in love with her unique dance which led to the innovative starring role as the first Black woman appearing on film in Siren of the Tropics, where she represented a West Indies woman (Papitou) who falls in love with a Frenchman (Pierre Batcheff) in the silent film directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Etievant.ĭestiny opened many doors for the aspiring star, doors that likely would not have opened in racially challenged America. In her early twenties after realizing she had gone as far as she could go as a dancer in the United States, Josephine sailed to France in 1925 where she appeared in La Revue Negre, a mostly Black production held at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. frightened to death with the screams of the Negro families running across the bridge with nothing but what they had on their backs as their worldly belongings burned.” We children stood huddled together in bewilderment…. Louis and watching the glow of the burning of Negro homes lighting the sky. “I can still see myself standing on the west bank of the Mississippi looking over into East St. Louis riot that occurred July of 1917 where 150 African Americans was murdered and upwards of 5,000 African Americans were left homeless, Louis radio station describing the East St. Josephine recounts one of many terrors she experienced in the United States to a St. In addition to being a renowned performer, she worked for the French Resistance during World War II and fought against racism in America during the turbulent Civil Rights Era. After separating from her husband, Josephine maintained Baker’s surname throughout her career. In 1921 she married William Howard Baker, a railroad employee who work as a Pullman porter, carrying baggage, shining shoes, and servicing passengers. Louis, MO, Freda Josephine McDonald was an African American entertainer whose walk of fame brought great energy to those she touched.
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