: Josephine Baker Becomes First Black Woman Inducted Into France’s Pantheon #WorldNEWS (PARIS) — The U. S. -born entertainer, anti-Nazi spy and civil rights activist Josephine Baker was inducted

Josephine Baker Becomes First Black Woman Inducted Into France’s Pantheon #WorldNEWS
(PARIS) — The U. S. -born entertainer, anti-Nazi spy and civil rights activist Josephine Baker was inducted into Frances Pantheon on Tuesday, becoming the first Black woman to receive the nation’s highest honor.
Bakers voice resonated through streets of Paris famed Left Bank as recordings from her extraordinary career kicked off an elaborate ceremony at the domed Pantheon monument. Baker joined other French luminaries honored at the site, including philosopher Voltaire, scientist Marie Curie and writer Victor Hugo.
Military officers from the Air Force carried her cenotaph along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Pantheon. Baker’s military medals lay atop the cenotaph, which was draped in the French tricolor flag and contained soils from her birthplace in Missouri, from France, and from her final resting place in Monaco. Her body stayed in Monaco at the request of her family.
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French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to a war hero, fighter, dancer, singer; a Black woman defending Black people but first of all, a woman defending humankind. American and French. Josephine Baker fought so many battles with lightness, freedom, joy. ”
“Josephine Baker, you are entering into the Pantheon because, [despite being] born American, there is no greater French [woman] than you,” he said.

Sarah Meyssonnier—AFP/Getty ImagesFrances President Emmanuel Macron stands in front of the cenotaph of Josephine Baker during a ceremony as she enters the French Pantheon in Paris on Nov. 30, 2021.
Baker was also the first American-born citizen and the first performer to be immortalized into the Pantheon.
She is not only praised for her world-renowned artistic career but also for her active role in the French Resistance during World War II, her actions as a civil rights activist and her humanist values, which she displayed through the adoption of her 12 children from all over the world. Nine of them attended Tuesdays ceremony among the 2,000 guests.
“Mum would have been very happy,” Akio Bouillon, Bakers son, said after the ceremony. “Mum would not have accepted to enter into the Pantheon if that was not as the symbol of all the forgotten people of history, the minorities. ”
Bouillon added that what moved him the most were the people who gathered along the street in front of the Pantheon to watch.
“They were her public, people who really loved her,” he said.
Read more: These Pictures Show That Josephine Baker Was More Than an Entertainer
The tribute ceremony started with Baker’s song “Me revoilà Paris” (“Paris, I’m Back”).