Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker (3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. 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.

She was born in St Louis, Missouri, as Freda Josephine McDonald where she had a very rough beginning. She dropped out of school at age 12 and had two failed marriages at ages 13 and 15.  Then she joined a vaudeville troupe that took her to New York City. She later became part of a show, Shuffle Along in the chorus line. This would be one of the first steps to her success. She joined the cast in the chorus.

She used comedy to make herself stand out in the chorus line, and later launch a career that sent her overseas because prejudice limited what she could accomplish in the United States. In Paris she became a success which led to a career that spanned all over Europe.  Some have called her the first Beyonce in that she starred in theater and movies in France and became a standout star.

She did not limit her life to performance, during World War II she became a spy for the French Resistance and later received a medal for her work. In the 1950s became active in the Civil Rights Movement traveling throughout the southern part of the United States. Ever the humanitarian, she also adopted 12 children from around the world and raise them.

She died in Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, at age 68, on April 12, 1975. She is the only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral. In August 2021 the French President, Emmanuel Macron, announced that Baker’s remains would be reburied at the Panthéon in November 2021.

Her son Claude Bouillon-Baker told Agence France-Presse that her body would remain in Monaco and only a plaque would be installed at the Panthéon. It was later announced that a symbolic casket containing soil from various locations where Baker had lived, including St. Louis, Paris, the South of France and Monaco, would be carried by the French Air and Space Force in a parade in Paris before a ceremony at the Panthéon where the casket was interred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker