An Ode to Josephine Baker
Written By Tali Felner
Children’s Librarian
In the fifty-years since Josephine Baker’s death, her legacy has endured in both American and French histories as a prolific performer and civil rights activist. From her exploits as a global celebrity to her flapper fashion, Josephine Baker seemed like the life of the party. Mostly notably known for her career on stage, she also paved the way as an example of queer joy: unabashedly living her life to the fullest and on her own terms despite the challenges she faced. I wanted to write this because while I do know that she was known to have intimate relationships with both men and women, I don’t know much else about her outside of her theater persona. So here is a short history of Baker’s life that I wanted to highlight this month.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906 as Freda Josephine McDonald, Baker grew up in the slums of Chestnut Valley where she worked several different jobs in her childhood to support her family. After dropping out of school, getting married, and then subsequently divorced not even a year later, she joined the St. Louis Choir that kickstarted her career. Baker gets a taste for city living when she and the vaudeville troupe she is a part of plays at New York City’s Plantation Club. Her talent pays off, Baker’s next big gig is the Boston touring company run of the ‘20s musical Shuffle Along by Harlem Renaissance’s Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles. At 16, Baker transitioned to the Broadway production, returning to New York City. Despite having a small part as a chorus line dancer, Baker outshines and engages with the audience, making herself stand out, but was once again cast in the chorus line for the next show she was in, The Chocolate Dandies, another musical revue by Blake and Sissle.
By 1925, Baker was able to travel all the way to Paris, France to be in La Revue nègre and debuted her controversial Danse Sauvage at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, widely regarded as her big break. Though her performance left her exposed, (quite literally—in just a costume that consisted of “strings of pearls, wrist cuffs, and a skirt with 16 rubber bananas,” as quoted from Jerkins’ Vogue article covering Baker;) Baker was emboldened to stay in Paris to continue dancing, specifically at the cabaret music hall Folies Bergère, where her performance of Danse Sauvage was showcased in La Folie du Jour. By the end of the ‘20s Baker amassed attraction as one of the most successful American and African American performers in France. Baker had acolytes in Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Cocteau, her career as a dancer took her to stages all across Europe including countries such as (now former) Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Croatia.
The 1930s found Baker’s stardom taking her to new heights. In quick succession Baker debuts her music and movie career throughout Europe, garnering fame for her voice and acting prowess, though she did not receive the same adoration in America. Magazine publications were quick to racially critique Baker’s performance in the 1936 revival of Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, an unenthralling performance; so back to France she went, striving to continue her career and commitment to entertaining abroad. When the war broke out, Baker had joined the French military’s counterintelligence agency as a spy. She used her status to socialize with Nazis and their collaborators and send back information gathered without raising suspicion. In the biography Jazz Cleopatra, Baker was known to “…[specialize] in gatherings at embassies and ministries, charming people as she had always done, but at the same time trying to remember interesting items to transmit.” She also opened her home to resistance fighters and refugees while still travelling around Europe as a spy, under the guise of entertainment. After the war, Baker received a Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military as well as the appointment of Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour for her efforts during the war. Baker was invited back to the United States after the war to perform and she came back with a fearless approach to music and performance–she championed for her shows to be desegregated, and was unafraid to call out problems in America. Because of this, Baker was barred from re-entering The United States until 1963 with intervention from Robert F. Kennedy I. Baker would spend another decade or so continuing to tour despite the physical toll it would take on her.
Post-war also found an activist in Baker. From her own childhood and adolescent experiences as a black girl in America to her being turned away from service as an already established celebrity in her own right, it was no question that Baker was a staunch supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in America. Baker made her stance extremely clear locally and abroad about the racial discrimination and systemic injustices happening there. Her efforts came to fruition when Baker spoke at the 1963 March on Washington–a speech entitled, “Negro Women for Civil Rights,”
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…” (Washington Post)
Baker, at this point, was a seasoned performer and mother of 12 adopted children. Since Baker was unable to have children due to an emergency hysterectomy she received during World War II, she pivoted. Called the “Rainbow Tribe,” Baker instilled to the public that children from different backgrounds, races and ethnicities could live in harmony despite their differences and societal measures put forth– she adopted 2 girls, one from France and the other from Morocco, and 10 boys; 3 from France, 2 from Japan, and a child from Venezuela, Algeria, Finland, Colombia, and the Ivory Coast. Baker made efforts to raise the children in their respective religions, furthering her ambition for racial tolerance and equity.
Baker died four days after a 50th anniversary show dedicated to her. 20,000 people attended her funeral; she was laid to rest in the Cimetière de Monaco. Her legacy is immortal: her influence on vaudeville, cabaret, theater, and jazz endures to the 21st century as she is cited as inspiration for musicians like Beyoncé and actors like Angelina Jolie. Her influence on queer culture, even more so, is tenfold. An openly bisexual woman, Baker married four times and was involved with numerous women, including singer Clara Smith, Ada “Bricktop” Smith, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, and Frida Kahlo. Aside from her provocative and controversial banana costume that she would wear for her Danse Sauvage, Baker would regularly wear men’s clothing on and off stage, radical for its time. Her unabashed way of living life at a time when women and people of color had virtually no rights or protections instilled in me a sense of hope about the way I want to live my life. I always found it interesting that her debut was also at a time of experimental art and creation with the Art Deco movement. The style was all about using what you had and making it into something spectacular, and I think Baker took this concept and ran with it to change the world.
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