While Joséphine Baker will enter the Panthéon on November 30, France Bleu Périgord portrays the American artist rooted in Dordogne through four videos on his history. This Sunday, discover Joséphine Baker, mother of a “rainbow tribe” of twelve children.
International artist and mother of twelve children: Joséphine Baker did it. In her castle in Milandes, in Dordogne, the singer and icon who will enter the Pantheon at the end of November, had adopted twelve children to form what she called a “rainbow tribe”. France Bleu Périgord offers you a series of videos to draw his portrait. After “Joséphine Baker, the committed woman”, “Her third love, Périgord”, this Sunday is the “rainbow mom” that interests us. Josephine Baker sang and danced on stages all over the world but most of all she wanted a family, and a big one. The “rainbow tribe” is how she named her idea: to prove that we can all live together in brotherhood, regardless of skin color, culture or religion.
Orphaned or abandoned children
But Josephine Baker couldn’t have children naturally. After severe peritonitis, she had to have her uterus removed. So, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon, they embarked on adoption. She even got the blessing of Pope Pius 13 for his “rainbow tribe” project. Joséphine Baker and Jo Bouillon thus adopted orphaned or abandoned children. In 1954, the first two, Akio and Jeannot, were adopted in Japan. Ten other children followed around the world: Finland, Venezuela, Algeria … until Stellina in 1964.
Why twelve? “Because when we love, we do not look at the number” replied Josephine Baker. “I got this idea because I saw so much misunderstanding between human beings, the so-called adults. And I was sure that with tiny, innocent children, they could give. an absolute example of world brotherhood. It is only in France that one could give such an example: all these little children, coming from the four corners of the world and living here truly as brothers “ she confided too.
Raised in the principles of the Republic
Its educational principles were based on the motto of the Republic: “Liberty, equality, fraternity”. The children all grew up together at the Château des Milandes. They were raised by Joséphine Baker when she was there, and by Jo Bouillon and the nannies when the artist was on tour. This “rainbow tribe” has remained united despite the separation of Joséphine Baker and Jo Bouillon, despite the sale of the castle due to debts in 1969 and despite the death of their mother in 1975.
These children, grown up, fought for their mother to enter the Pantheon. But they demanded that his remains remain buried alongside their father, Jo Bouillon, near Monaco.