Saint-Louis

Entouré bleu, le « bloc » où Joséphine et sa famille vécurent, à Mill Creek Valley, quartier qui fut détruit dans les années 1960.

Source : https://www.theclio.com/tour/1376/1

Sous la plume d'un certain Alex Carnevale (journaliste, semble-t-il), en 2017, quelques détails intéressants sur ses origines : « Before he permanently disappeared from her life, Josephine Baker's white father did her one favor. He paid for her mother Carrie to receive six weeks of treatment in a white hospital in St. Louis. Josephine Baker's given name, Freda, was German and so, probably, was her father. Three letters on her birth certificate testified to his identity, letters she would not see until the document had to be procured when she left the United States. » Son père était donc Allemand.

Et Alex Carnevale de poursuivre : « When she was five, Josephine Baker's mother was finally ready to take her and her brother Richard into her own home. They called their mother's new husband Papa. The poorest neighborhoods in St. Louis were composed largely of Russian Jews, Italians or blacks. Josephine and Richard slept with Carrie's two other children on one mattress, riddled with bedbugs. For food they raided the trash of a local outdoor market. Odd jobs occasionally made them a dime. With her brother, she tossed coal to the rest of the kids from freight cars. […] » Quatre enfants donc au total.