Josephine in Pantheon of ‘French’ legends

France is inducting Josephine Baker — Missouriborn cabaret dancer, French World War II spy and civil rights activist — into its Pantheon, the first black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.

On Tuesday, a coffin carrying soils from the US, France and Monaco — places where Baker made her mark — will be deposited inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris. Her body will stay in Monaco, at the request of her family.

French President Emmanuel Macron decided on her entry into the Pantheon, responding to a petition. In addition to honoring an exceptional figure in French history, the move is meant to send a message against racism and celebrate USFrench connections.

“She embodies, before anything, women’s freedom,” Laurent Kupferman, the author of the petition for the move, told The Associated Press.

Baker was born in 1906 in St. Louis. At 19, having already divorced twice, she pursued a job opportunity in France.

She met immediate success on the Theatre des ChampsElysees stage, where she appeared topless and wearing a famed banana belt. Her show, embodying the colonial time’s racist stereotypes about African women, caused condemnation and celebration.

When France and Britain declared war against Nazi Germany in 1939, Baker, who spoke five languages, enlisted as an informant with French counterintelligence services. Her exploits included sharing information hidden on her music sheets.

She became a civil rights activist and was the only woman to speak at the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr.