Baker Josephine - Josephine: the dazzling life of Josephine Baker

In memory of my magnificent mother Dolores M. Hruby P. H. P. For Josephine C. R.

Text 2014 by Patricia Hruby Powell.
Illustrations 2014 by Christian Robinson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-4521-2971-6 The Library of Congress has catalogued the previous edition as follows:
Powell, Patricia Hruby, 1951
Josephine: the dazzling life of Josephine Baker / By Patricia Hruby Powell; Illustrated by Christian Robinson.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4521-0314-3 (alk. paper)
1. Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975Juvenile literature.
2. DancersFranceBiographyJuvenile literature.
3.

African American entertainersFranceBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Robinson, Christian, illustrator.
II. Title.
GV1785.B3P68 2014
792.8028092dc23
[B]
2012030440 Design by Jennifer Tolo Pierce.
Typeset in Neutra Text, Neutra Display, and Monterey BT.
The illustrations in this book were rendered in acrylic on paper. Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94107 Chronicle Bookswe see things differently.

Without the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I dont know how I would have obtained all the resources that I used to research this book. Without the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I dont know how I would have obtained all the resources that I used to research this book.

The books (especially those in French), Josephines films from the twenties and thirties, and the musical and spoken recordings (some of which I listened to on obscure and obsolete technological devices also provided by the library) were invaluable. I was also so fortunate to have visited the Sheldon Art Galleries in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 2006, which presented the exhibit Josephine Baker: Image and Icon, curated by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales.

To Lovisa Brown, Director of Education at the Museum of the African Diaspora, for her departments generous consultation in the making of this book. I shall dance all my life....
I would like to die, breathless,
spent, at the end of a dance. JOSEPHINE BAKER, 1927 JOSEPHINE danced a sizzling flapper dance the Charleston. Knees SQUEEZE, now FLY heels flap and chop arms scissor and splay eyes swivel and pop.

Josephine, all RAZZMATAZZ, erupted into the Roaring Twenties a VOLCANO. America wasnt ready for Josephine, the colored superstar. PARIS WAS.

Josephine born poor, out of wedlock in honky-tonk town rambunctious SAINT LOUIS, Missouri home of barrelhouses, nickel shots of whisky, and gambling halls home of RAGTIME MUSIC raggedy black music gotta-make-the-rent music lift-my-soul music GOLDEN-AGE music. Josephines mama scrubbed floors, but wouldve rather been DANCING where you were free of how-to-pay-the-rent, where you could be right there in your body nowhere else, where you could let your body LAUGH. She dreamt of dancing alongside acrobats, magicians, animals, honky-tonk bands, you name it. She dreamt of dancing alongside acrobats, magicians, animals, honky-tonk bands, you name it.

Called it VAUDEVILLE, the most popular entertainment of the day. Josephine sat on Mamas knee and sponged up that funky music through her ears, her body. Her SOUL. Mama called her TUMPY, that round baby girl, after Humpty Dumpty. With her first breath, she made faces. As soon as she walked, she DANCED.

When she talked, she told stories and kept on all her life to get attention, to entertain, to suit her mood. She told THIS STORY: Walking home from church one day, she stepped on a rusty nail. Her small leg swelled. Doctor said, AMPUTATE! Josephine screamed to keep her leg. How was she going to dance with only one leg? She screamed till she fainted. Yes, yes. Yes, yes.

There it was. She could have DANCED FOR JOY. Tumpy and family moved through the slums of Saint Louie, like a band of VAGABONDS, from shack to shack. They all six slept in one bed Daddy and Mama, heads one way, four kids, the other way newspapers covering the window. Tumpy was MAMA, DADDY, and SANTA to the little ones. Old ropes for jumping, bits of chalk for hopscotch, and cast-off dolls, she wrapped in discarded paper Christmas presents for Richard, Margaret, and Willie Mae.

Mama washed laundry. For other people. Tumpy scrubbed alongside Mama. And Tumpy DANCED. I didnt have any stockings....
I danced to keep warm. She flung her arms, she flung her legs.

Like she flung her heart and her soul. Cause DANCIN makes you HAPPY when nothin else will.

RACE RIOTSwhite against Negro ERUPTED across the river, across from her shantytown. Cause some Negroes earned better wages than whites. At better jobs. WHITE RABBLE-ROUSERS spread lies said Negroes were invading white neighborhoods to steal, rape, and murder.

White folks got scared. Those ugly rumors incited some white folks to beat, murder, and burn BLACK EAST SAINT LOUIS. JOSEPHINE saw colored people beaten fleeing their homes across the bridge over the Mississippi River to Saint Louis. To her neighborhood. Fear grasped hold of her heart and squeezed tight the core of a volcano. Anger heated and boiled into steam, pressing HOT in a place DEEP IN HER SOUL.

Later shed let the steam out in little poofs. POOF! A funny face. That used to be fear. POOF! Shed mock a gesture. That used to be anger. Shed turn it into dance.

AH, VERY WITTY. Josephine delivered laundry for Grandma. And for Mama. She cleaned and babysat. She earned pennies. PENNIES added up to NICKELS.

Put three nickels together and Tumpy went to the BOOKER T. WASHINGTON THEATER the Negro theater the place where Ma Rainey sang and Bessie Smith wailed, the place where dancers hoofed, loose-limbed, and comedians made you laugh. In those days, Negroes entertained Negroes one place. Whites entertained whites another place. Thats how it was.

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