15 LGBT Legends from the past for 50 years of Stonewall 14/15: Josephine BakerJosephine Baker (3 Jun

15 LGBT Legends from the past for 50 years of Stonewall 14/15: Josephine BakerJosephine Baker (3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was a Bisexual Woman and American-born French entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. During her early career she was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de foliein 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a girdle of artificial bananas, became her most iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the 1920s. Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968 she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children. During Baker’s work with the Civil Rights Movement, she began adopting children, forming a family she often referred to as “The Rainbow Tribe”. Baker wanted to prove that “children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers.” At some point Baker was in a relationship with Frida Kahlo. -- source link

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