Happy #InternationalWomensDay! #SheMeansBusiness #beboldforchange #IWD2017 #rewritingthecode #womenshistorymonth #wilmah #wvldi #Repost @ladies_of_history ・・・ Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was a French vedette, spy, singer, entertainer and Civil rights activist whose career was centered primarily in Europe and in particular in her adoptive country of France. She had given up her US citizenship for a French citizenship after her broadway show generated less impressive numbers at the box office and Time magazine referred to her as a "Negro wench...whose dancing and singing might be topped anywhere outside of Paris", while other critics said her voice was "too thin" and "dwarf-like" to fill the Winter Garden Theatre. _______________ Baker soon after based her work in Europe while living in France. Nevertheless, she supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, although she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club. (The club eventually met her demands). Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate live entertainment shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan but said publicly that she was not afraid of them. ________________ In 1963, Baker also spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was the only official female speaker. While wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur, she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights." Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged, and both gave brief speeches. After King's assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if she would take her husband's place as leader of the American Civil Rights Movement but after many days of thinking it over, Baker declined, saying her children were "too young to lose their mother". #blackhistorymonth #greatwoman #ladiesofhistory #vedette #civilrightsmovement #beautifulwomen #josphinebaker