A girl takes a nap during a Christmas eve mass at a Catholic church on the outskirts of Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province, December 24, 2016. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Palestinians drive classic cars during a gathering organized by the Bethlehem municipality near the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on October 17, 2025. (Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)

“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)

Members of an Orthodox community take part in an Easter service at a church in the village of Poteryaevka, some 200 km (124 miles) southwest of the city of Barnaul in Russia's Altai region, on April 24, 2011. (Reuters/Andrei Kasprishin)

Spanish legionnaires sing an anthem as they carry a statue of the Christ of Mena outside a church during a ceremony before they take part in the “Mena” brotherhood procession in Malaga, southern Spain, March 24, 2016. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A view of an installation as part of the “S.A.C.R.E.D” exhibition by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei during the 55th La Biennale of Venice, in the church of Sant'Antonin in Venice May 28, 2013. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

Clowns and entertainers gather to attend an annual service of remembrance in honour of British clown Joseph Grimaldi at All Saints Church in Haggerston in London, Britain, February 5, 2017. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

A woman washes clothes at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence at the Saint Yves Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on July 26, 2021. (Photo by Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)