Just found the below link and was shocked how America treated her. Labled a Commie and thrown out of her/your country when she went back for a viste with her husband Went to back to NY and refused entry to 32 hotels. She died in France in the 70s and 20K at her funeral...given by the French a 21 gun salute. She worked for the French restistance and was given medals and thanked by the French. WHY she was a Black American. Link is worth watching.
No one person called her Commie And it was not illegal to be a commie in the so called land of the free
More likely segregation at that time. As well as this, from Wikipedia... In 1952 Baker was hired to crown the Queen of the Cavalcade of Jazz for the famed eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 1. Also featured to perform that day were Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts, Toni Harper, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon and Jerry Wallace.[37][38] An incident at the Stork Club interrupted and overturned her plans. Baker criticized the club's unwritten policy of discouraging black patrons, then scolded columnist Walter Winchell, an old ally, for not rising to her defense. Winchell responded swiftly with a series of harsh public rebukes, including accusations of Communist sympathies (a serious charge at the time). The ensuing publicity resulted in the termination of Baker's work visa, forcing her to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was almost a decade before U.S. officials allowed her back into the country.[
Civil Rights activists were frequently thought of as communists by federal law enforcement, and there may have been ties to communism. When someone is fighting the government, the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing kicks in. The FBI viewed Martin Luther King as a communist, too. Baker was quoted as saying she "couldn't stand America." Moreover, when someone thought to be a communist made frequent trips overseas, and gave up their US citizenship, it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider them to be a particularly dangerous communist. When you add her bisexuality (which was also illegal) into the mix, I'm not surprised by her treatment.
It certainly was illegal. Research the McCarthy hearings. I happen to know what went on in my country.
You are so right, Ken. I remember this woman well and her outrageous comments about America as well as her behavior led the president and state department to deny her further activity in the U.S. She was with MLK in the 60s and many people were upset with her.
Congress passed the Communist Control Act in 1954. There was considerable hysteria around Communists before that, however. I'd be more inclined to believe that she was barred from hotels strictly due to the segregation in society at that time, but I don't know that much about her or those incidents.
In 1949, I had two card carrying commie teachers. One was always raving about how wonderful communism was, etc. and when I went home and told my parents about this, my dad hit the ceiling. Well, these two were finally arrested, one right in the school and one at home. They belonged to a cell in the next town.
OK An actor called Sam Wanamaker fled to the UK after Macathy purges. He was an actor in the UK who got help to get Globe rebuilt. on the south bank of the Themes His daughter Zoe Wanarmaker is also an actor and love by us brits. Below is just part of her history after she came to a free country from a country that jailed people of Commie views Wanamaker finally became a British citizen in 2000 after being notified she would be made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2001 Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to drama, which she received from the Queen at Buckingham Palace. As a US citizen, she would only have been eligible to receive an honourary CBE awarded by the foreign secretary. But she became British