The French Culture Podcast (by Paris Unlocked)

episode artwork

Courtney Traub

02 June 2026

1h 4m 17s

Josephine Baker: Performer, Spy, Civil Rights Hero, Enigma (Great French Icons of the 20th Century, Part 4)

00:00

01:04:17

To see the full show notes, including a full list of sources and music used for this episode, visit the podcast webpage at Paris Unlocked.

Josephine Baker is best known as the African-American performer and dancer who took Paris by storm in the 1920s with her own takes on the Charleston and the Black Bottom, performed in an iconic banana skirt. But Baker, who became a French citizen, shouldn't be reduced to this stereotypical image. She starred in numerous films, opened her own clubs, and as a member of France's counterintelligence agency Deuxième Bureau during World War II, proved a talented spy and resistance fighter, using her performer status as her only cloak and dagger.

In later life, she was a civil rights activist and humanitarian who spoke at the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963, taking the podium right before Martin Luther King, Jr. And her later shows, performed amid chronic health problems, only cemented her fame by showing Baker was as charismatic and original as ever. Baker was, in short, a complex and remarkable woman: one who deserves to be remembered for the many facets of her career and legacy, rather than for one iconic moment in the 1920s.

Show Credits & Notes

  • Production: This episode was conceived, written, narrated, and edited by Courtney Traub. The Producer was Brendan Whalen, who also contributed additional research and script editing.
  • Audio Editing: Additional editing and sound design was by Engin Hassan of Edit Fade Warp.
  • Artwork: Mateeya
  • Translations: All original French quotes translated by Courtney Traub unless specified.

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