Josephine Baker

1906–1975 DANCER AND SPY UNITED STATES AND FRANCE

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.

—JOSEPHINE BAKER

Josephine hung by a rope from the stage rigging. Below her, she could see the actors playing Romeo and Juliet. She felt a little ridiculous dangling above them in her pink tights, pink leotard, and pink wings, a harness underneath it all.

She was only thirteen, and she was playing cupid in her very first stage role. She couldn’t believe her luck in getting the part. It was a dream come true.

Josephine heard her cue and swung out over the stage. This was it! Her chance to show everyone what she could do. But suddenly her soaring stopped short.

Oh no! Her wings were caught on the scenery!

What could she do? The actors were staring up at her with looks of horror. She was supposed to shoot them with her “arrows of love,” but she couldn’t get close enough.

In a panic, Josephine jerked her legs around, trying to get free.

I’m going to ruin the show!

She flailed her arms in circles, hoping to dislodge the wings.

I’m going to get fired!

She rocked her body back and forth, grunting with effort.

I’ll never work in vaudeville again!

Then she heard it: laughter. Lots of laughter. The audience was cracking up!

Josephine looked out at the audience members, who were staring up at her. At her! A feeling like electricity jolted her body. She’d never felt anything like it.

Slowly, a smile spread across Josephine’s face. She pretended to run in place. She flapped her arms like a bird. She bugged her eyes and stuck out her tongue. The audience loved her!

And Josephine loved being the star of the show.

From then on, she was hooked on the stage. And during her lifetime, Josephine Baker danced her way into the history books.

As a girl, Josephine’s favorite story was “Cinderella”—probably because it was so much like her own life. She was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father left when Josephine was born, and her mother struggled to support the family by cleaning houses and washing laundry. Josephine was often hungry, and the family was so poor that they lived in a rat-infested shack with six people sharing one bed!

At just seven years old, Josephine’s mother hired her out as a maid. The young girl was responsible for taking care of all the household chores, working from 5:00 AM until she fell into bed exhausted at 10:00 PM.1 Like Cinderella, Josephine dreamed of escaping her life of near-slavery, but she didn’t know how. She did know that she loved to dance. “I didn’t have stockings,” she explained, “[so] I danced to keep warm.”²

Whenever Josephine had a few extra coins for herself, she went to the all-black vaudeville shows. There, she watched performers play music, sing, and dance. Josephine was spellbound, and she memorized every line and every dance step. At age thirteen, she convinced a vaudeville group called the Dixie Steppers to hire her as a dancer in the chorus line.

Josephine had many nicknames. When she was a child, her mother called her “Tumpy,” after Humpty Dumpty, because of her round, chubby face. Later, fans dubbed her the Black Pearl, Bronze Venus, Jazz Cleopatra, and Creole Goddess.

The director was so impressed with her dancing that he gave her a solo part in the show: cupid in Romeo and Juliet. On her first night, when her costume got stuck and the audience laughed at her midair antics, Josephine was sure she would be fired. But the director could see that the audience loved her and asked her to do it again in every show.

When the Dixie Steppers packed up for a tour of the South, Josephine decided it was time to make her escape. Without telling her mother, she snuck out of town with the show and worked as the dresser. When they tried to leave her behind because she was too young and inexperienced, she stowed away in a costume trunk. Josephine wanted to be a dancer and she wanted to see the world—she would not quit!

One night, when a chorus line dancer fell and hurt herself, Josephine seized the opportunity. She begged the director to let her take the dancer’s place—she knew every step. He agreed, and Josephine got her chance. But the other girl’s costume was too big. When Josephine got onstage, the audience laughed at her baggy tights and oversized skirt. Instead of being embarrassed, Josephine hammed it up. She acted clumsy, grinned, and crossed her eyes. The audience loved it, and Josephine quickly became the star of the show yet again.

When Josephine heard about auditions in New York City for an all-black Broadway musical called Shuffle Along, she knew she had to go there next. She arrived in the Big Apple with no friends, nowhere to live, and no money, spending her first two nights sleeping on a park bench.

And her audition didn’t go well. The producers thought she was too small and too light-skinned, so once again, she got a job as the costumer. And once again, she learned every song and every dance step from the wings. And once again, when a dancer got sick, Josephine was ready. The director let her replace the sick dancer, and Josephine got to dance in her first Broadway show. “When I saw those watching faces, a giddiness swept over me  .  .  .  I let the music carry me away.”3 As usual, Josephine stole the show with her dancing and her comedy.

Josephine grew up in Boxcar Town, one of the worst slums in America. It got its name because the houses were actually abandoned train cars in which poor black families lived.4

Josephine performed all over New York in all-white clubs, where she couldn’t even sit at a table or walk in through the front door. She had seen worse segregation during her tour of the south with the Dixie Steppers: whites and blacks used separate train cars, restaurants, bathrooms, and clubs. But at least in New York, she made good money. She began sending money home to her family to help pay for clothes and an education for her siblings—something she did for the rest of her life. But she didn’t see her family again for fourteen years.

A famous French artist designed the poster for La Revue Nègre with Josephine’s dancing image on it. The poster was plastered all over Paris. “For the first time in my life, I felt beautiful,” she said.⁵

In 1925, nineteen-year-old Josephine was invited to perform in Paris with La Revue Nègre. She was nervous about traveling so far from home, but she had dreams to follow. So she swallowed her fears and set sail for France. From the moment she stepped off the boat, the country amazed her. There was no segregation. Blacks and whites ate together, rode trains together, and sat together in the same clubs. Josephine couldn’t believe it.

For Parisians, Josephine’s dancing was unlike anything they’d ever seen—it was wild and free. And funny. French audiences went wild for her. Practically overnight, Josephine was a superstar. Everywhere she went, people knew her and loved her. Parisians bought Josephine dolls, Josephine lipstick, Josephine perfume, Josephine shoes, and Josephine clothing. French women even tanned their skin to look more like her.6 And like the superstars of today, Josephine branched out: she made a record, starred in movies, and danced all over Europe.

Josephine returned to America in 1926 and starred in the most popular show on Broadway, Ziegfeld Follies. She was the first and only black person in the show. But America hadn’t changed much; the country was still racist and treated her like a second-class citizen. She knew she didn’t belong there anymore—Paris was her home. She moved back to France for good.

Josephine loved animals. In Paris, she had a parakeet, a parrot, two rabbits, a pig, and a snake named Kiki. She even had a pet leopard named Chiquita. She loved to walk Chiquita on a leash down the streets of Paris, with both them wearing matching diamond chokers!⁸

In 1939, Europe got pulled into World War II. Josephine loved France and wanted to help her new homeland. “France has made me what I am,” she said. “I am prepared to give my life for France.”⁷ First, she joined the Red Cross. She had flown as a stunt pilot, so she began flying first aid into Belgium. But France had even bigger plans for their favorite star.

A year later, the Nazis invaded and captured France. The French people were prisoners in their own country—if they were lucky. Jews, resisters, and other “undesirables” were shipped off to the concentration camps, where most were killed. Josephine was recruited by French military intelligence to help her country in a new way: they asked if she would spy on the Germans. Of course, she agreed.

Because Josephine was a famous performer, she had a good excuse to travel around Europe with no trouble. She went to government events, flirted, and eavesdropped on Nazi officials. She wrote secret messages to the French Resistance (those in France who were actively fighting the Nazi invaders) on her sheet music using invisible ink and pinned notes into her underwear, and then smuggled those messages back home to France. The Nazis didn’t dare search a superstar.

When Josephine performed in Europe just before WWII, she saw plenty of racism. In Vienna, posters and flyers called her the “black devil,” church bells rang out to warn people to avoid her, and the streets were lined with Austrians protesting her performance.

The Germans lost the war in 1945—thanks, in part, to Josephine’s daring spy work. In fact, it was such a great help to France that the government gave her the Legion d’Honneur, the highest honor the country can give.

Josephine tried to have children, but complications from several miscarriages made it impossible. After the war, she began adopting children from around the world. She wanted to show people that different races could live together happily as brothers and sisters. She adopted twelve children in all and called them her Rainbow Tribe.

Josephine loved to dance and kept performing her entire life. At age sixty-seven, she danced at Carnegie Hall in New York City, the most famous theater in America, and embarked on a seventeen-city tour. The show was a huge success. Finally, America loved her. She went back to Paris to launch her new show there and got the best reviews of her life. “This is not just a comeback. This is an eternal return,” said a Paris newspaper.9 In one theater, the fans gave her a standing ovation for thirty minutes!

After one such evening, Josephine fell asleep and never woke up. Paris, her adopted city, gave her an elaborate funeral. Her hearse was completely covered in flowers and hundreds of fans lined the street.

Josephine married four times but was also bisexual and had relationships with both men and women, black and white. She even had an affair with the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.¹⁰

Josephine Baker fought her entire life for racial equality. Sometimes that fighting was through her art—dance and comedy—and sometimes it was through her words and actions. She always insisted that blacks and whites sit together in her audience, even if a show cancelled her. She convinced banks, TV stations, and stores to hire black workers. She wrote articles about the unfairness of segregation in American magazines and newspapers. She spoke at college campuses and at civil rights gatherings. In 1963, she joined Marin Luther King Jr. at the Washington Monument for his famous March on Washington. She was the only female speaker at this historic event. Here’s what she said:

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and in the houses of presidents. 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.11

From the boxcar slums of St. Louis to the palaces of Europe, Josephine Baker lived a true Cinderella story. She was a Cinderella who fought her oppressors  .  .  .  and won!

HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?

I’m going to rock the world by being a salon owner and beautician who is known for her creativity. I work hard every day to enhance my skills by designing, drawing, and using my imagination to make my hands do things with hair that people have never seen. I will be a boss who makes people feel good about themselves through beauty. My clients will rock the hairstyles that I create with great confidence!

ZAMYA TIDWELL AGE 10