The Josephine Baker You Probably Didn’t Know
Resistance Fighter, Civil Rights Activist, and Spy
You are more likely to have seen Josephine Baker naked than adorned with medals. Maybe you’ve seen her or someone portraying her doing the “The Charleston” or her famous “Banana Dance!” You probably don’t know how she aided the war effort, smuggling documents for the Allies and French Resistance to defeat the Nazis. Janelle Monae will be starring in a “De La Resistance” production focusing on her war years.
Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, MO, on June 3, 1906. She lived in a poor neighborhood and had ample reason to be disillusioned with America early, having witnessed her neighborhood burned out by whites.
“I can still see myself standing on the west bank of the Mississippi looking over into East St. Louis and watching the glow of the burning of Negro homes lighting the sky. We children stood huddled together in bewilderment … frightened to death with the screams of the Negro families running across this bridge with nothing but what they had on their backs as their worldly belongings… So with this vision I ran and ran and ran.” Josephine Baker
She dropped out of school at age twelve, making her living as a street dancer or waitress. She was sometimes homeless, sleeping in cardboard boxes. She got married at thirteen; that relationship lasted less than a year. She went back to street dancing and married William Howard Baker when she was fifteen. While working in New York, she divorced Baker but kept the last name. She was a chorus girl in a couple of Broadway shows, but it was on a trip to Paris she found success. Josephine starred in the Folies Bergère and became famous for her erotic dancing. Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.”
In September of 1939, France declared war on Germany. Josephine was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, a French military agency, to socialize with the Germans, Italians, and Japanese officers who patronized the nightclubs she worked at. She secretly reported back to French officials and transported documents as required. When Germany invaded France, Baker retreated to her castle in the south of France, Château des Milandes, where she hosted people involved in the Free France effort and helped supply them with visas. As an entertainer, she traveled throughout Europe and South America. She carried information about German troop movements, harbors, and airfields on invisible ink on her sheet music.
After World War Two ended, Josephine was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. Josephine had a successful tour of venues in the United States until set challenged the policy of The Stork Club in New York of discouraging Black Patrons. She called out famous critic Walter Winchell for not supporting her, and he proceeded to eviscerate her in the newspapers, insinuating she had ties to Communism.
Josephine spent most of her later years in France, caring for her eleven adopted children. She remained active in the American Civil Rights Movement from there, never being afraid to speak out.
“I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, ’cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world .”
After the assassination of Martin Luther King, his widow Coretta Scott King asked Josephine to pick up the mantle. Baker ultimately declined, saying her children were too young to grow up without a mother. In 1968, she lost her castle due to unpaid debts and was given an apartment to reside in by Princess Grace of Monaco. She died at 68 on April 12, 1975.
Note: Her castle has now been turned into a Josephine Baker Museum. God willing, my wife and I will be able to visit there in September and will have more to write.
Intriguing history of yet another remarkable and strong, strong woman, William. The poverty, racism, and danger she endured was unfathomable. I hope her story will strengthen good people everywhere.
I’m glad Monaco shamed them!