The first black woman to be honored in the final resting place of France's most revered figures is being inducted into the Pantheon.
The Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris will be the site of a coffin containing soils from the US, France and Monaco. Her family requested that her body stay in Monaco.
The petition lobbying for her "pantheonization" was the reason why the French President decided to enter the Pantheon. The move is meant to send a message against racism and celebrate U.S.- French connections.
The author of the petition for the move told The Associated Press that she embodies women's freedom.
Baker was born in 1906. She moved to France following a job opportunity after having relationships with men and women and having already divorced twice.
She arrives in France in 1925 and is an emancipated woman, taking her life in her hands, in a country of which she doesn't even speak the language.
She achieved immediate success on the Theatre des Champs-Elysees stage, where she appeared topless and wearing a banana belt. Her show was a response to the racist stereotypes about African women of the colonial time.
The Theatre des Champs-Elysees's spokeswoman told the AP that she was a fantasy of an African woman. Josephine was asked to dance something that was tribal, savage, and African-like.
She became a French citizen after her marriage to Jean Lion, a Jewish man who later suffered from anti-Semitic laws of the collaborationist Vichy regime.
In September 1939, as France and Britain declared war against Nazi Germany, Baker got in touch with the head of the French counterintelligence services. She started sharing information hidden on her music sheets as an Informant.
Baker lived a double life, one on the one side, the music hall artist, and the other on the other side, a secret life, later becoming completely illegal, of intelligence agent, according to researcher and historian Géraud Létang.
She refused to play for the Nazis after France was defeated in 1940. She continued to work for the French Resistance even after she stopped performing.
She brought in several spies from the Allies to travel to Spain and Portugal.
She brings her make-up artists and technicians with her, so that she can get the information she wants. She is at risk of the death penalty or the harsh oppression of the Nazi regime.
After being seriously ill, Baker left France for North Africa. The British and Americans didn't trust De Gaulle so Baker gathered intel on them.
She raised funds from her own money. It is thought that she brought 10 million euros to support the French Resistance.
Baker joined the Air Force of the French Liberation Army in 1944 as a second lieutenant. The 1944 incident off the coast of Corsica where Baker was helped out of the sea was mentioned in the group's logbook. Josephine Baker was in the front of the plane after it had to make an emergency landing.
Baker organized concerts for soldiers and civilians. She went to Germany after the defeat of the Nazis to sing for people who had been deported.
Benetta Jules-Rosette, a leading scholar on Baker's life and a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego, said that Baker's involvement in politics was atypical.
Baker was involved in anti-racist politics after the war. She was labeled a communist and banned from her homeland for a decade after she fought against American segregation. She was the only woman to speak at the March on Washington before Martin Luther King spoke.
She adopted 12 children from all over the world and created a "rainbow tribe" to embody her ideal of "universal Fraternity." She bought a castle and land in the southwestern French town of Milandes to build a city that embodied her values.
One of Baker's sons, Brian Bouillon Baker, told the AP that his mother saw the success of the rainbow tribe because they never ratted on each other. I heard her say to some friends that she is mad to never know who causes trouble, but she is proud that her kids are united.
She ran into financial trouble at the end of her life. Baker was offered a place for her and her children to live by Princess Grace of Monaco.
She died from a brain hemorrhage four days after the opening of her comeback tour. She was buried in Monaco.
Critics of the president of France question why he chose an American-born woman to be the first black woman in the Pantheon, instead of someone who stood up against discrimination in France.
Baker is one of 72 men and five women honored in the Pantheon. Felix Eboue and Alexandre Dumas are two Black figures in the mausoleum.
Pantheon administrator David Medec told the AP that these are people who have committed themselves. It is not only excellence in a field of competence, it is also the question of commitment to others.
