The Faces of Black America. Beautiful!

[sheshe2]

88. WOW...Thank you for that! Awesome lady!

After the war Baker became the first American woman to receive three of the highest honors of the French state, the Croix de Guerre, the Rosette de la Resistance, and being made a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur; all given to her by Charles de Gaulle personally.

In the 1950s Josephine Baker became very active in the American civil rights movement. Not only did she protest racism by adopting 12 multi-ethnic orphans as her legal children, she also forced clubs, theaters, opera houses and other cultural venues to open themselves to an integrated audience by either refusing to perform there or by simply buying the establishment and changing the audience guidelines. She also started working closely with the NAACP using her wealth and fame to bring attention and fight for their cause. This lead to her being the only official female speaker at the 1963 March on Washington. She spoke at the side of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing her Free French army uniform and her medals. Baker used this opportunity to introduce the “Negro Women for Civil Rights” and brought Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates to the stage to give brief speeches.