Josephine Baker in the Paris Panthéon - Highest Award for a woman who led many fights

How important and powerful the belief in a better morning can be, Josephine Baker over her entire life. A remarkable example of life that has not lost its effect today-in the middle of the second tough hard Corona winter.

France has a new heroine after Emmanuel Macron honored the dancer and pioneer against racism Josephine Baker with admission to the Paris Panthéon. For the first time it is a black civil rights activist who was given this highest award in French cultural policy.

The Paris Panthéon is the National Fame Hall of France and the graves of famous French personalities. Voltaire also rests here .

With the Bakers award, Emmanuel Macron also wants to send a sign of the values ​​of the fifth Republic.

Who was Josephine Baker?

When Josephine McDonald born in St. Louis, Missouri in the summer of 1906, the later French dancer and singer conquered Paris by her beauty and vitality in the 1920s. With her grace and grace, she symbolized the African -American culture of the time.

Baker grew up fatherlessly and in poverty. At the age of 8 to 10, she did not go to school to feed her family. Baker developed a preference for the extravagant as a child, which she should later make famous.

In 1925 she went to Paris after a few years of dance, singing and musical experience to dance at the Théâtre of the Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre . With her Danse Sauvage , she quickly became one of the most popular music hall entertainers from France and reached dreams near Folies-Bergère , where she caused a sensation with a half-naked dance in a string tanga decorated with bananas.

In 1937 she became a French citizen. In 1930 she sang professionally for the first time, gave her screen debut as a singer four years later in Zouzou and made several other films before the Second World War restricted her career.

During the German occupation of France, Baker worked with the Red Cross and the Résistance and, as a member of the Free French troops, entertained resistance fighter in Africa and the Middle East.

As an informal employee of the secret service, she also resisted the Nazis. For this she later received the Order of the French Legion of Honor.

In 1959 she performed in Paris again after the end of World War II. At that time she traveled to the USA several times to take part in civil rights demonstrations . In 1968 her estate was sold to pay accumulated debts.

Until her death in 1975, she repeatedly appeared in Paris during the celebrations on the 50th anniversary of her debut.

Her life was dramatized in the television film The Josephine Baker Story (1991) and dealt with Josephine Baker: The Story of An Awakening (2018) .

Video: Life and the sad end of Josephine Baker

The numerous fights of the Josephine Baker

In addition to her merits in the resistance to Nazi Germany, Baker also emerged against racism a black civil rights activist after .

She experienced early what racism means. She had to work as a maid at the age of eight, and at 13 she was inevitably married (source: Morning Briefing by Gabor Steingart) .

Last but not least, she also kicked the prudery ( "I was not really naked. I just had no clothes." ) In the battle and also knew how to defend itself against the lack of humor :

Many women are only concerned with their good reputation, but the others are happy. "