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It was in her French Air Force uniform that Joséphine Baker, decked out with decorations, addressed the crowd gathered in Washington during the March for Civil Rights… Extract from the magazine “1:15 pm on Sunday” of November 28, 2021.
Joséphine Baker (1906-1975) is an anti-racist activist in France alongside the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra). The former honorable correspondent of the French military counter-espionage, in the service of Free France during the Second World War, will participate in the United States, in 1963, in the March for Civil Rights.
The American-born star and naturalized French in 1937 finds himself with Pastor Martin Luther King in Washington when he pronounces these historic words: “I have a dream. The one that my four grandchildren will live one day in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the value of their character. I have a dream today!”
“It’s the happiest day of my life!”
“She is the only woman to speak alongside Martin Luther King and in French Air Force uniform with all her decorations [la médaille de la Résistance française, la croix de guerre 1939-1945, la Légion d’honneur…] essayist Laurent Kupferman told the magazine ‘1:15 p.m. on Sunday’ (replay). There is this double symbolism: she is alongside Luther King to tell him: ‘I am not forgetting you, I am fighting for civil rights, against racism, for equality… but now I am French.’ “
Joséphine Baker addresses the huge crowd gathered in the American capital on August 28 from the rostrum: “I want you to know: this is the happiest day of my life! You are a united people. Finally! Because without unity, no victory is possible.” On November 30, 2021, the music hall artist, resistance fighter, second lieutenant of the Free French Forces and anti-racist activist entered the Pantheon.
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