Baker's estate and some other sources identify vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her natural father, whilst other sources dispute this.

Her mother Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, both of whom were former slaves of African and Native American descent. Early life įreda Josephine McDonald was born on June 3, 1906, in St.

As her resting place remains in Monaco Cemetery, a cenotaph was installed in vault 13 of the crypt in the Panthéon. On November 30, 2021, she was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors in France. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Baker sang: 'I have two loves, my country and Paris.' īaker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. 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 Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. She aided the French Resistance during World War II. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. Her costume, consisting of only 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.īaker 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'. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in the city. ĭuring her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Freda Josephine Baker ( née McDonald J– April 12, 1975), naturalised as Joséphine Baker, was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress.

The Missing by Jean Love Cush