Josephine Baker was an incredible woman who made an adventure of her life from a terrible beginning to a beautiful and tragic and yet peaceful death. She was funny, she was brave, and she was an amazing dancer. Josephine Baker the banana skirt wearing queen clawed her way up to become an amazing woman in history, starting young with big dreams, becoming a star, and influencing the world against racism. Josephine Baker was born in a time of racial disputes, before the Civil Rights march, and before Martin Luther King’s speech, on June 3, 1906. She grew up in the slums of St. Louis with her mother Carrie and her brother Richard at first, due to her father leaving. Her mother remarried to Arthur Martin and had two more children, Margaret and Willie Mae. Josephine's father, Eddie Carson left her mother after having Richard, which broke her mom's heart, and destroyed her dream of show biz. Both her and Eddie were entertainers and dance partners, with other jobs of course. Before Carrie became bitter and angry, she had hopes and dreams of joining the dancing community “Not only was she pretty and lively, and a good dancer, but she was also attracted to performing” (Wood, 14). The two fell in love and became an awesome duo, however Eddie was not a family man. He didn’t want to have children yet, and when Carrie became pregnant …show more content…
When World War two came to Paris she did not stand down. Using her career as a cover, Baker became an intelligence agent carrying secret messages written in invisible ink on her sheet music. She was able to move throughout Europe charming high-ranking officials without them suspecting anything. All her work during WWII awarded her french medals, the Croix de Guerre a “ French military decoration created in 1915 and 1939 to reward feats of bravery by individuals or groups” and the Legion of Honour “ … Order of the french republic created by Napoleon Bonaparte” (Britannica, The Editors of