Josephine Baker Quotes - Page 2

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.

We've got to show that blacks and whites are treated equally in the army. Otherwise, what's the point of waging war on Hitler?

I love performing. I shall perform until the day I die.

I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

I have two loves: my country and Paris.

He was my cream, and I was his coffee - And when you poured us together, it was something.

The white imagination is sure something when it comes to blacks.

The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling... How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?

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.

Sex was a pleasurable form of exercise, like dancing.

My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose... Africa... but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race... in some ways even more so, because they gave the sweat of their brow and their blood in slavery so that many parts of America could become prosperous and recognized in the world.

I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.

Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.

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.

Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life.

I spent 30 minutes each morning rubbing my body with half a lemon to lighten my skin.

I think they must mix blood, otherwise the human race is bound to degenerate. Mixing blood is marvelous. It makes strong and intelligent men. It takes away tired spirits.

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.

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

Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear... humiliation... misery and terror... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.

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.'

The old Catholic parties hounded me with a Christian hatred from station to station, city to city, one stage to another.

I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.