Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an African American expatriate entertainer and actress. She became a French citizen in 1937. Most noted as a singer, Baker also was a celebrated dancer in her early career. She was given the nicknames the "Bronze Venus" or the "Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole Goddess" in anglophone nations. In France, she has always been known as "La Baker".

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de Guerre.

Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Carrie McDonald. Baker's true ethnic background is unknown. Her father's identity is debated among historians. Nevertheless her estate credits vaudeville drummer Eddi Carson as her natural father, but according to a biography written by her foster son Jean-Claude Baker: