DISCUSSION: Josephine Baker
Her given name was Freda Josephine McDonald. Her nickname was “Tumpy.” At 13, Tumpy left home to be in the theater. By the time she was 19, she was a veteran of the stage, twice married and the star both of the stage and of high society in Paris. She kept the last name of her second husband, Billy Baker. She had become Josephine Baker.
Josephine Baker loved to be loved. She loved “her people” in the United States and she loved France. She served France during World War II in the Resistance and as a spy. She demanded civil rights for black US citizens and was the only woman to speak at the 1963 March on Washington. She adopted 12 children of various ethnicities, The Rainbow Tribe. She counted presidents, sheiks, princes, dictators and artists as her best friends. She owned a chateau, earned millions and then lost it all. But she never lost the love of her people or her two countries – the US and France.
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