Dancer – Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker: The first French-American war hero and black woman to be inducted into Paris mausoleum for revered figures. 

As a civil rights activist, she was the only woman to speak at the 1963 “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King JR. She fled St. Louis, where she was born and moved to Paris at 19 to escape the brutal violence black people experienced in the US at this time. Baker was the “superstar” of the 1920s as a cabaret performer in Paris. 

As France and Britain declared war on Germany in the 1940s, she then worked for French counterintelligence and worked as an informant, getting close to officials and gaining intel for the French government. 

A double life of cabaret dancing by day, and a French spy by night. continuing her work for the French government, Baker became a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air force, and after serving her time toured the US fighting segregation. During her 1951 tour of the US she was targeted by the FBI and banned from the US for a decade for being a “communist” she returned to France and adopted 12 children, raising her family in the French countryside until her death in 1975. Baker was praised as a hero to France, serving its people in the military, being a revered entertainer, civil rights activist, and mother. She lives on as one of the most influential people to date.