The remains of US-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker will be buried at the Pantheon Monument in Paris, making the artist who is a World War II hero in France the first black woman to receive the highest honor. of country.
The newspaper Le Parisien reported on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron decided to hold a ceremony on November 30 at the Paris Monument, which houses the remains of scientist Marie Curie, French philosopher Voltaire, writer Victor Hugo and other French luminaires.
The presidential palace confirmed the newspaper report.
After her death in 1975, Baker was buried in Monaco, dressed in a French military uniform with the medals she received for her role as part of the French Resistance during the war.
Baker will be the fifth woman to be honored with a burial in the Pantheon and will also be the first honored artist.
Holocaust survivor Simone Veil, one of France’s most revered politicians, was buried in the Pantheon in 2018. The other women are two who fought with the French Resistance during World War II, Germaine Tillion and Genevieve de Gaulle -Anthonioz, and Nobel Prize winners. Curie chemical.
The monument also contains the remains of 72 men.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker became a megastar in the 1930s, especially in France, where she moved in 1925 while seeking to escape racism and segregation in the United States.
Baker quickly became famous for her “banana skirt” dance routines and captivated audiences at the Theater des Champs-Elysees and later at the Folies Bergere in Paris.
She became a French citizen after her marriage to the industrialist Jean Lion in 1937.
During World War II, he joined the French Resistance. Among other missions, he collected information from German officials he met at parties and brought hidden messages to underwear in England and other countries, using his star status to justify his travels.
A civil rights activist, he participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Employment and Freedom along with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his “I Have a Dream.”