Baker has long been a personal hero of mine. Her story is inspirational in so many ways. I’ve visited the sites of a couple clubs in New York City where she was barred from sitting down for dinner and a drink but not from performing. That indignity inspired her move to France in the first place.

I’ve visited Parisian "boites" that are still in business where she made herself a household name. It’s hard to underestimate how much French people of a certain age adore her.

Did you know that when she retired she settled down in the south of France and adopted a whole tribe of abandoned children? She fought against racism in France too, which does exist even though it’s different from in the United States because it’s based on France’s history of colonialism rather than on systematic chattel slavery.

Josephine often, gently but firmly, pushed back against the prevailing French notion that racism does not exist in France.

Taking care of underprivileged children, most of whom were not white, was obviously an act of love on her part, but it was also a demonstration of the need for more social justice in France, particularly for immigrants and their children.