We made a pilgrimage today to Josephine Baker, who is buried nearby at the Cimetière de Monaco.

In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many African-Americans artists, musicians and writers moved to France to escape the widespread racism at home. Baker was one of the first and most iconic, finding fame soon after her arrival in Paris in 1925. She eventually renounced her US citizenship and became a French national, fought in the resistance in World War II and later became an icon in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. She never performed for a segregated audience.

Next month she’ll become the first black woman to be memorialized at the Panthéon in Paris, where important and celebrated political, cultural and scientific figures from French history are enshrined. She’ll be just the sixth women of the 81 honorees.

Monaco, 17-Oct-2021