The Black queer icon who spied on Nazis, flew a WWII plane, & was also a vaudeville superstar
To fans, Josephine Baker was the ultimate sex symbol. But behind the scenes, she played a crucial role in the second World War.
By Kimberly Kaye for LGBTQ Nation –
Draped conspicuously in feathers and furs, photographer’s flashbulbs illuminating the phalanx of jewels around her neck, no one, least of all the Nazis, pegged Josephine Baker — Europe’s biggest star and the richest Black woman of her generation — as a spy. But that was the plot’s genius. And given the audacious chameleon’s ability to switch between globally famous sex symbol, queer icon, and polarizing civils rights advocate, few people were more qualified for the revolutionary gig than the famed “Nefertiti of Now,” as Pablo Picasso called her.
Rags to riches tales rarely start slummier than Baker’s. Born Freda Josephine McDonald in 1906, her life began in East St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother was a half-Black, half-Apalachee laborer with three other children to raise on a “colored” washerwoman’s pay, making every meal a struggle to obtain. Josephine would later describe dancing on street corners “just to keep warm,” accompanied by Blues buskers begging for coins. As a 10-year-old, she experienced 1917’s bloody St. Louis Race Riots firsthand, watching white men hunt Black citizens publicly.
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photo: circa 1925: Portrait of American-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) lying on a tiger rug in a silk evening gown and diamond earrings.
Photo: Getty Images
