“Josephine Baker, you are entering into the Pantheon because, (despite) born American, there is no greater French (woman) than you,” he said.īaker was also the first American-born citizen and the first performer to be immortalized into the Pantheon. Josephine Baker fought so many battles with lightness, freedom, joy.” Her body stayed in Monaco at the request of her family.įrench President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to “a war hero, fighter, dancer, singer a Black woman defending Black people but first of all, a woman defending humankind. Baker’s military medals lay atop the cenotaph, which was draped in the French tricolor flag and contained soil from her birthplace in Missouri, from France, and from her final resting place in Monaco. Military officers from the Air Force carried her cenotaph along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Pantheon. Baker joined other French luminaries honored at the site, including philosopher Voltaire, scientist Marie Curie and writer Victor Hugo. Baker’s voice resonated through streets of Paris’ famed Left Bank as recordings from her extraordinary career kicked off an elaborate ceremony at the domed Pantheon monument.
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