Showing results for "Joséphine" in Americas

Funny, candid and unconventional: the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker tells her own story in this enchanting memoir. Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humour, beauty and effervescence on stage. She became an icon. Hemingway, Jean Cocteau and Picasso admired her; Shirley Bassey adored her. It was told she strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah who wore a diamond collar.

From a young girl growing up in the slums of Missouri who hired herself out as a maid at 12 to the lead dancer in the Folies Bergere idolized by Parisians, Josephine Baker danced to the beat of her own drum. She was ahead of her time in many ways, which is probably why she still resonates so strongly with many people today. As a multi-dimensional woman who lived a life with hardly a dull moment, Josephine Baker steps out of the pages of history and continues to capture people's interest.

In Josephine Baker’s Cinematic Prism, Terri Simone Francis examines how Baker fashioned her celebrity through cinematic reflexivity, an authorial strategy in which she placed herself, her persona, and her character into visual dialogue.

No one could have predicted even two years ago that an African American would take the oath of office as president of the United States in January of 2009. For many, the occasion marks the climax to the civil rights movement and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that Americans could be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This collection, with about 400 letters from Americans of all walks of life, is being created to stand as a symbol of this exciting moment in history.

The North American prairie is an ecological marvel. One cubic yard of prairie sod contains so many organisms that it rivals the tropical rainforest for biological diversity. And like the rainforest, it showcases nature’s prodigious talent for symbiosis. The lush carpet of grasses feeds a huge population of grazing animals and is home to some of the nation's most iconic creatures--bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles.