It’s a song that resembles us. Joséphine Baker, from the Charleston to the Pantheon

Josephine Baker, an American dancer and singer who came to Paris for a show, decides to stay in France. Her new homeland will have her entered into the Pantheon for her commitment during the Second World War as well as, throughout her life, against racism.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-language popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

Joséphine, born in 1906 in Saint-Louis, Missouri, in a poor black family, became a dancer and “went up” to New York. From Broadway, she was hired in 1925 for a show presented in Paris, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées: La Negro Review. Later, she would say that she was upset when, getting off a train in Paris, a white man helped her carry her suitcase, and then a white doctor treated her without any reluctance. She would never return to the United States, especially since she became a star in France. She traveled throughout Europe, not as a black American, but as a French artist, whose nationality she acquired in 1937.

In the review Paris that movesat the Casino de Paris in 1930, she presented herself with her American mixed-race skin, saying she was Asian, a discrepancy whose delights she shared with the composer of this old song from the beginning of the century, Vincent Scotto, who, in the same show, gave her I have two lovesThis song will remain linked to the American singer all her life, and even beyond.

In this episode of It’s a song that resembles usyou hear excerpts from:

Josephine Baker, If I were white, 1932

Josephine Baker, Little Tonkinese girl, 1930

Josephine Baker, I have two loves, 1930

Josephine Baker, Excerpt from the speech and then interview during the March on Washington, 1963

Josephine Baker, I have two loves, 1930

You can also extend this column with the book It’s a song that resembles us published by Heritage Publishing.

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