Josephine Baker — the US-born entertainer, anti-Nazi spy and civil rights activist — was on Tuesday inducted into France’s Pantheon, becoming the first black woman to receive the nation’s highest honor.
Baker’s singing voice resonated through the streets of Paris’ famed Left Bank, as recordings from her extraordinary career launched an elaborate ceremony at the domed Pantheon monument.
Baker joined other French luminaries honored at the site, including philosopher Voltaire, scientist Marie Curie and writer Victor Hugo.
Photo: Reuters
French air force officers carried her symbolic casket along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Pantheon.
Baker’s military medals lay on top of the casket, which was draped in France’s national flag and contained soil from her birthplace in Missouri, from France and from her final resting place in Monaco.
Her body stayed in Monaco at the request of her family.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to “a war hero, fighter, dancer, singer; a black woman defending black people, but first of all a woman defending humankind.”
“American and French, Josephine Baker fought so many battles with lightness, freedom, joy,” Macron said.
“Josephine Baker, you are entering into the Pantheon because, [despite being] born American, there is no greater French [woman] than you,” he said.
Baker was also the first US-born citizen and the first performer to be immortalized at the Pantheon.
She 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.
Nine of her adopted children attended Tuesday’s ceremony among the 2,000 guests.
“Mom would have been very happy,” Akio Bouillon, Baker’s son, said after the ceremony. “Mom would not have accepted to enter into the Pantheon if that was not as a symbol of all the forgotten people of history, the minorities.”
Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, Baker became a megastar in the 1930s, especially in France, where she moved in 1925 as she sought to flee racism in the US.
“The simple fact to have a black woman entering the Pantheon is historic,” said French academic Pap Ndiaye, an expert on US minority rights movements.
“When she arrived, she was first surprised like so many African Americans who settled in Paris at the same time ... at the absence of institutional racism. There was no segregation ... no lynching,” Ndiaye said.
Baker became a French citizen after her marriage to industrialist Jean Lion in 1937.
She joined the French Resistance, using her performances as a cover for spying activities during World War II.
In 1944, Baker became a second lieutenant in the French Liberation Army of General Charles de Gaulle.
Toward the end of her life, she ran into financial trouble, was evicted and lost her properties, but she received support from Princess Grace of Monaco, who offered her and her children a place to live.
In 1975, Baker died in Paris at the age of 68.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese