Today is the birthday, in 1906, of Josephine Baker, an amazing woman. She was an American and French dancer, singer, and actress. She was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture.
During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue Un vent de folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.
Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the “Black Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, the “Bronze Venus”, and the “Creole Goddess”. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She adopted 12 children, whom she referred to as the Rainbow Tribe, and raised them in France.
Baker aided the French Resistance during World War II, and also worked with the British Secret Intelligence Service and the United States Office of Strategic Services, the extent of which was not publicized until 2020, when French documents were declassified. After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by General Charles de Gaulle.
She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, and is also noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Baker was the only official female speaker. While wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d’honneur, she introduced the “Negro Women for Civil Rights”. Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged, and both gave brief speeches.
In her speech, one of the things Baker said:
“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…
Baker in her banana costume,Folies Bergère revue Un vent de folie, 1927, photo by Lucien Waléry
Baker in uniform, 1948
Today is the birthday, in 1951, of American singer–songwriter Deniece Williams, who had the 1978 US No.1 & UK No.3 single with Johnny Mathis ‘Too Much Too Little Too Late’, and the 1984 US No.1 & UK No.2 single ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy’. Worked as a backing singer with Stevie Wonder’s group Wonderlove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI7YHZVc7mM
