American-French entertainer and civil rights pioneer Josephine Baker is being memorialized in Paris with a new mural, fifty years after her passing. Through the efforts of urban artist FKDL and a street art festival that aims to foster a sense of community, Baker’s mural now looks out over a diverse area in northeast Paris.
Baker, who was born in St. Louis, rose to fame in the 1930s, particularly in France, where she relocated in an attempt to escape racism and segregation in the U.S.
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Baker’s mural, which is part of a series painted in the neighborhood recently and organized by the Paris Colors Ourq association, is intended to represent freedom and resistance. The artist FKDL explained that his desire is to bring “women back into the urban landscape.”
“Josephine Baker has always been, for me, a somewhat iconic figure of that era. Both wild and free-spirited, but also deeply connected to music, musicals, and dance,″ he told the Associated Press. “She was an extraordinary character, an incredible woman.“
“I feel moved and happy, because this is part of my mother’s memory,” her son Brian Baker told the Associated Press during the mural’s unveiling on Saturday.
He was one of 12 adopted children from all over the world that Baker referred to as her “rainbow tribe” and what her son called “a little United Nations.”
Baker left her impoverished family to become a dancer in New York City, and in 1925, she traveled to Paris to dance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre, introducing her “danse sauvage” to France. According to history, she went on to become one of the most popular music-hall performers in France and was given star billing at the Folies-Bergère, where she danced seminude in a G-string ardoned with bananas.
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Even after World War II, she continued to work for organizations like the Red Cross. She also entertained troops in the Middle East and Africa while serving in the Free French Army. She was later given the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the Résistance rosette.
Beyond her stage career, Baker marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington and worked as a French Resistance spy on the Nazis.
Baker, who passed away at the age of 68, became the first Black woman to be inducted into France’s Pantheon, joining notable figures like author Victor Hugo, chemist Marie Curie, and philosopher Voltaire.
“My mother wouldn’t have liked words like iconic, star, or celebrity. She would have said, no, no let’s keep it simple,″ her son said.
