Quote

I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.

Josephine Baker

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Josephine Baker
Age: 68 †
Born: 1906
Born: June 3
Died: 1975
Died: April 12
Actor
Dancer
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Model
Singer
Street Artist
Vedette
St. Louis
Missouri
Freda Josephine McDonald
Joséphine Baker
United
Away
States
Louis
Ran
Discrimination
Terror

More quotes by Josephine Baker

Image
What am I most ashamed of in my life? Not keeping my promise to my sister and being too scared of America to attend her funeral.
Josephine Baker
Image
I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.
Josephine Baker
Image
The old Catholic parties hounded me with a Christian hatred from station to station, city to city, one stage to another.
Josephine Baker
Image
I have never really been a great artist. I have been a human being that has loved art, which is not the same thing. But I have loved and believed in art and the idea of universal brotherhood so much, that I have put everything I have into them, and I have been blessed.
Josephine Baker
Image
I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be let alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other.
Josephine Baker
Image
I spent 30 minutes each morning rubbing my body with half a lemon to lighten my skin.
Josephine Baker
Image
When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.
Josephine Baker
Image
To realise our dreams we must decide to wake up.
Josephine Baker
Image
You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
Josephine Baker
Image
All my life, I have maintained that the people of the world can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice.
Josephine Baker
Image
I was learning the importance of names - having them, making them - but at the same time I sensed the dangers. Recognition was followed by oblivion, a yawning maw whose victims disappeared without a trace.
Josephine Baker
Image
Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.
Josephine Baker
Image
The white imagination is sure something when it comes to blacks.
Josephine Baker
Image
Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.
Josephine Baker
Image
I remember when Lindbergh arrived in Paris, I was one of the first persons to know about his landing, because as the French people know that I was born in St. Louis, thinking I would be very proud to announce it to the public, they gave me the news first. I was then starring in the 'Folies Bergere.'
Josephine Baker
Image
I'm not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.
Josephine Baker
Image
Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
Josephine Baker
Image
I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.
Josephine Baker
Image
One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States... A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn't stand it anymore... I felt liberated in Paris.
Josephine Baker
Image
Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.
Josephine Baker