France on Tuesday posthumously honored Josephine Baker, a US-born jazz legend, cabaret dancer, World War II spy, resistance hero and civil rights activist, placing her cenotaph in the Pantheon mausoleum alongside other national heroes and making her the first Black woman to receive the country’s highest distinction.
In a star-studded ceremony befitting the icon in the domed Parisian monument, President Emmanuel Macron hailed her as a “legend” who “chose France” and led many fights with “freedom, lightness, gaiety."
After the war, Baker continued to fight against racism and campaigned for the civil rights movement in the US.