Josephine Baker | Captivating Performer and War Hero in France

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker worked to support her family from the age of eight. Against the odds, she became famous across the world. She developed her own style of dancing while working as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur’s Club at thirteen. Hired as a dresser for the touring company of “Shuffle Along,” she filled in for an ailing chorus girl. The producers took note, and she joined the Broadway version at sixteen.

Baker traveled to Paris with a Harlem dance troupe in 1925 to perform in “La Revue Nègre.” The show blended music, dance, comedy, and drama, featuring a cast of American Black performers in the prestigious Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an overnight star. 

Unlike renowned designer Coco Chanel, a Nazi collaborator, Baker used her talent and celebrity status to gather intelligence for the French Resistance. She also entertained the troops and assisted the Red Cross. To smuggle classified documents written in invisible ink on sheet music. Notes pinned inside her underwear while traveling across Europe remained undetected because guards were more apt to ask for her autograph. 

In her rented chateau in Southern France, Baker hid Resistance fighters. When Nazi officials came to the estate, Baker charmed and distracted them during their questioning, preventing them from discovering the fighters. 

Baker’s chateau in France became unsafe as the war intensified. She moved to Morocco, the strategic base for the Free French forces after the Allied invasion of North Africa. While working with them in Morocco, Baker fell ill with peritonitis for 18 months. Even from her hospital bed, she continued spy work, meeting with diplomats and Resistance members. She left France, but later traveled to London via Lisbon with over 50 classified documents.

Josephine Baker received both the Croix de Guerre and the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 2021, Josephine Baker became the first Black woman inducted into the Panthéon, France’s highest honor for national heroes.