“Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Nicknamed the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and even the “Créole Goddess” in anglophone nations.

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture and to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre”.

Photo: American entertainer Josephine Baker in costume for her famous “banana dance”. Baker was an overnight sensation when she arrived in Paris in the mid-1920s. (Photo by Walery/Getty Images)

A gaucho is unseat by a wild horse during the annual celebration of Criolla Week in Montevideo, March 30, 2015. Throughout Easter Week, “gauchos”, the Latin American equivalent of the North American cowboy, from all over Uruguay and neighboring Argentina and Brazil will visit Montevideo to participate in the Criolla Week to win the best rider award. The competition is held from March 29 to April 5 this year. (Photo by Andres Stapff/Reuters)

Actors reenact the famous picture of a sailor kissing a nurse on the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, near a replica sculpture in New York's Times Square August 14, 2015. The replica is being displayed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the iconic photograph of the most famous kiss in American history that was captured between an American sailor and nurse on August 14, 1945, marking the end of World War Two. The actors are hired by a tour bus company to pose for groups to photograph. (Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

In this September 4, 1963, file photo, a police officer carries off a demonstrator holding a Confederate flag after a group of demonstrators protested enrollment of two African-Americans at Ramsay High School in Birmingham, Ala. The Confederate battle flag has been removed from South Carolina's Statehouse grounds, in the wake of the massacre of nine African-Americans, including a state senator, at an historic black church in Charleston in June 2015. (Photo by AP Photo)

American singer Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, known professionally as Halsey arrives at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)

American singer-songwriter Maggie Lindemann poses on the red carpet at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Californian, U.S., March 22, 2022. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

American singer-songwriter Miley Cyrus makes a tank top referencing Selena Gomez's “SNL” joke in the second decade of May 2022. (Photo by mileycyrus/Instagram)

American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo shows off her excitement ahead of her San Diego show in the second decade of May 2022. (Photo by oliviarodrigo/Instagram)