FILE – Charlie Chaplin congratulates entertainer Josephine Baker after her performance at the charity gala “Le Bal des Petits Lits Blancs,” at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, on May 20, 1953. France is inducting Josephine Baker – Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French Resistance fighter and civil rights leader – into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.
FILE- Actress Josephine Baker in her apartment at the Hotel Forresta near Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. 7, 1957, with three of her adopted children, Marianne, left, Koffi, center, and Brahim. France is inducting Josephine Baker – Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French Resistance fighter and civil rights leader – into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.
FILE – Josephine Baker with patients at a American hospital in Paris, France, where she sang for French soldiers on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 1939. France is inducting Josephine Baker – Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French Resistance fighter and civil rights leader – into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.
FILE – Performer Josephine Baker strikes a pose during her Ziegfeld Follies performance of “The Conga” on the Winter Garden Theater stage in New York, Feb. 11, 1936. France is inducting Josephine Baker – Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French Resistance fighter and civil rights leader – into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.
Josephine Baker’s grave is pictured at the Monaco-Louis II Cemetery in Monaco, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist into its Pantheon. She is the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries. A coffin carrying soils from places where Baker made her mark will be deposited Tuesday inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris.
Monaco’s honor guards arrive at a ceremony held to honor Josephine Baker at the Monaco-Louis II Cemetery in Monaco, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist into its Pantheon. She is the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries. A coffin carrying soils from places where Baker made her mark will be deposited Tuesday inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris.
Prince Albert II of Monaco delivers a speech during a ceremony honouring Joesphine Baker at the Monaco-Louis II Cemetery in Monaco, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist into its Pantheon. She is the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries. A coffin carrying soils from places where Baker made her mark will be deposited Tuesday inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris.
Prince Albert II of Monaco stands for the Monaco national anthem, during a ceremony honoring Joesphine Baker at the Monaco-Louis II Cemetery in Monaco, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist into its Pantheon. She is the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries. A coffin carrying soils from places where Baker made her mark will be deposited Tuesday inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris.
PARIS (AP) — The voice of Josephine Baker, speaking and singing, will resonate Tuesday in front of the Pantheon monument in Paris, where she is to symbolically be inducted — becoming the first Black woman to receive France’s highest honor.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the decision in August to honor the “exceptional figure” who “embodies the French spirit,” making Baker also the first American-born citizen and the first performer to be immortalized into the Pantheon. She will join scientist Marie Curie, philosopher Voltaire, writer Victor Hugo and other French luminaries.
The move aims to pay tribute to “a woman whose whole life is looking towards the quest of both freedom and justice,” Macron’s office said.
Baker is not only praised for her world-renowned artistic career but also for her active role in the French Resistance during World War II, her actions as a civil rights activist and her humanist values, which she displayed through the adoption of her 12 children from all over the world.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker became a megastar in the 1930s, especially in France, where she moved in 1925 as she was seeking to flee racism and segregation in the United States.
“The simple fact to have a Black woman entering the pantheon is historic,” Black French scholar Pap Ndiaye, an expert on U.S. minority rights movements, told The Associated Press.
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