Josephine Baker's memoir, "Fearless and Free," highlights her extraordinary life, showcasing her evolution from a renowned dancer in 1920s Paris to a French Resistance fighter in WWII and a prominent civil rights advocate. The memoir, primarily composed of interviews by Marcel Sauvage, captures defining moments and impressions rather than being a comprehensive biography. Baker's colorful life story is further enriched by her adoption of a diverse "Rainbow Tribe" of children. Despite the passage of decades, her legacy continues to resonate, as evidenced by her 2021 induction into the Pantheon as the first Black woman, celebrated for her courage and humanitarian efforts.
Baker had always commandeered her own narrative, and over the years, her various recountings of her life's events...have created headaches for generations of historians and journalists.
In his introduction, Sauvage makes it clear that Fearless is not a comprehensive biography: Rather, it's an impressionistic form of reportage, a collection of defining moments, impressions and images.
Her badassedness seemed boundless as she emerged from the conflict a decorated war hero and an outspoken civil rights activist.
When she died in 1975, thousands lined the Paris streets to glimpse her funeral procession; the police locked arms to restrain crowds as her flower-covered coffin was driven by.
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