Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was nineteen years old when she found
herself in Paris for the first time in 1925. Overnight, the young
American dancer became the idol of the Roaring Twenties, captivating
Picasso, Cocteau, Le Corbusier, and Simenon. In the liberating
atmosphere of the 1930s, Baker rose to fame as the first black star on
the world stage, from London to Vienna, Alexandria to Buenos Aires.
After World War II, and her time in the French Resistance, Baker devoted
herself to the struggle against racial segregation, publicly battling
the humiliations she had for so long suffered personally. She led by
example, and over the course of the 1950s adopted twelve orphans of
different ethnic backgrounds: a veritable Rainbow Tribe. A victim of
racism throughout her life, Josephine Baker would sing of love and
liberty until the day she died.