Roundup Newswires

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Josephine Baker, music hall star and civil rights activist, enters Panthéon

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Admin

French-American war hero is first Black woman inducted into Paris mausoleum for revered figures

Josephine Baker, the French-American civil rights activist, music hall superstar and second world war resistance hero, has become the first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon mausoleum of revered historical figures – taking the nation’s highest honour at a moment when tensions over national identity and immigration are dominating the run-up to next year’s presidential race.

The elaborate ceremony on Tuesday – presided over by the French president, Emmanuel Macron – focused on Baker’s legacy as a resistance fighter, activist and anti-fascist who fled the racial segregation of the 1920s US for the Paris cabaret stage, and who fought for inclusion and against hatred.

Dancer, singer … spy: France’s Panthéon to honour Josephine Baker

Posted on November 28, 2021 by Admin

The performer will be the first Black woman to enter the mausoleum, in recognition of her wartime work

In November 1940, two passengers boarded a train in Toulouse headed for Madrid, then onward to Lisbon. One was a striking Black woman in expensive furs; the other purportedly her secretary, a blonde Frenchman with moustache and thick glasses.

Josephine Baker, toast of Paris, the world’s first Black female superstar, one of its most photographed women and Europe’s highest-paid entertainer, was travelling, openly and in her habitual style, as herself – but she was playing a brand new role.