Josephine Baker Inducted into the French Panthéon

 On Tuesday, November 30, Josephine Baker was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, an honor reserved for French notables like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Èmile Zola, Marie Curie, and Jean Moulin (French resistance fighter). President Emmanuel Macron was the only speaker at the brief but dignified ceremony.

 Josephine Baker (1906-1975), an African-American woman by birth who emigrated to France when she was only 19 years old. She was a daring dancer and singer, an acclaimed actress, a French resistance spy, a Civil Rights activist, and an adoptive mother of 12 multi-racial, multicultural, multi-religious children. 

A coffin containing soils from the U.S., France, and Monaco—places where Baker made her mark—was carried by French military pallbearers down a long red-carpet to the monument.

 

A band and choir perform at one of the stops outlining Baker's life.

The pallbearers stopped several times along the way for multi-media presentations that played Baker’s songs and highlighted her achievements. 

 

                                    

Before the coffin entered the Panthéon, a luminary display (a common French art form) was projected onto the building to tell her life story.

 

 The coffin enters the Panthéon in dramatic fashion down the long aisle to be placed in the rotunda.

The French recognized Baker's courageous and generous contributions to the war effort by awarding her several French military honors, including the Croix de Guerre. She was the first American-born woman to receive this honor.
 

 

 The pallbearers set down the coffin to lie alone in state in the rotunda of the Panthéon with Baker's medals on top of it.

                                

 

 

                                

President Macron and his wife, Brigitte (right), stand next to Prince Albert of Monaco (center) who is standing next to one of Baker's 12 children. Below after the ceremony, Macron greets Baker's children.

 

 

(President Macron delivers the induction speech with a quote from Baker in the background)

"C'est la France qui a fait de moi ce que je suis, je lui garderai une reconnaissance éternelle."

("It is France that made me what I am, I will keep her in eternal gratitude.")