This month we are featuring two Americans who fought fascism, Leon L. Lewis, and Josephine Baker.

They embody what’s best about patriotism and citizenship. Lewis put himself in harm’s way to expose fascist plots against America, and Josephine Baker who aided the Franch Resistance as a spy during World War II.

What is fascism and why is it a threat to democracy?

Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology on the far-right spectrum which advocates for ultranationalism, dictatorial leadership, centralized autocracy, militarism, and forcible suppression of the opposition.

It supports a social hierarchy and strong control of society and the economy at the expense of personal freedoms and individual rights.

Benito Mussolini first used the term fascism in 1915. Historians debate about the exact definition of fascism and whether all authoritarian governments are fascist. Cultural theorist Umberto Eco listed fourteen general properties of fascist ideology in his 1995 essay “Ur-Fascism.” This is their playbook. Do you recognize any of these statements from speeches you are hearing in our country and around the world? Numbers five and six are especially relevant.

1.      Cult of tradition – established beliefs

2.      The rejection of modernism – not technological advances, but social and cultural evolution is blamed for society’s ills.

3.      The cult of action for action’s sake – action should be taken without intellectual reflection.

4.      Disagreement is treason – intellectual discourse is not permitted.

5.      Fear of difference – members of society  should look, think, talk, and worship in the same ways. People who are different may harbor different ideas that endanger a cohesive society.

6.      Appeal to a frustrated middle class – fascists blame the demands and aspirations of members of lower socioeconomic groups for the challenges faced by members of the middle class.

7.      Obsession with a plot – Appeal to the fears of your followers to make them feel personally threatened by a group or an idea.

8.      The enemy is both weak and strong – point out perceived character flaws and failings of the enemy while at the same time portraying them as a formidable threat to society.

9.      Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy – We must always be fighting the enemy and not become complacent.

10.  Contempt for the weak – Elitism is encouraged. Anyone who does not or cannot fight for fascist beliefs is not strong and has no value in society. This includes anyone with a mental, emotional, or physical challenge.

11.  Everybody is educated to become a hero – you must be willing to give your life to preserve the ideals of your leaders.

12.  Machismo and Weaponry – a distain for women (women should not be equals - their value is only reflected by their ability to bear and raise children and care for the home) and intolerance and condemnation of LGBTQIA+ individuals.

13.  Selective Populism – Leaders determine the voice of the people and only this view will be  reported by the media.

14.  Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak – all educational materials will be simplified and limited to insure the masses do not develop critical learning skills or reasoning abilities beyond what’s needed to perform their assigned tasks within society.

Leon L. Lewis (188-1954) was an American attorney. He served as the first national secretary of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the national director of B’nai B’rith, the founder and first executive director of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee.

He helped establish and was a key  figure in the spy network that infiltrated American Nazi organizations in the 1930s and 1940s. He came to be known by Nazis as “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles.”

His parents were German Jewish immigrants who migrated to Wisconsin where Lewis was born and raised. He attended the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University, and in 1913 received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Lewis was fluent in English, Yiddish, and German.

His first position after graduating from law school was with the ADL working on discrimination cases in the Midwest. Before enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War I, Lewis persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to order the  removal of all anti-Semitic statements from U.S. Army training manuals.

Lewis served in the Amy infantry and Army Intelligence in England, France, and Germany. He remained in Germany for six months after the war ended to help care for wounded soldiers and hep achieve recompense for the families of the dead. Lewis was injured during the war and was a member of the Disabled American Veterans of America.

He returned to his job with the ADL in Chicago and continued to fight anti-Semitism taking on auto-maker Henry Ford, and other prominent anti-Semites.

In 1920, he married Ruth Lowenberg and they had two daughters. In the late 1920s Lewis moved his family to Los Angeles and founded the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee. From that organization, he established a major anti- Nazi spy ring and intelligence gathering operation. His operation worked in cooperation with local and federal law enforcement agencies and was funded by his own capital and all the major motion picture studio executives.

Lewis was able to recruit non-Jewish World War I veterans to join his spy network because of his extensive work for veterans rights following the war. These were the types of man fascist groups were also recruiting. Lewis’ operatives foiled a plot by a group of U.S. Marines who were Nazi-sympathizers to steal and sell weapons from armories to American fascists. They also exposed a plot by Deitrich Gefken to take over West Coast military armories.

In 1934, Congress investigated West Coast Nazis using the spy ring’s evidence.

Lewis’ network compiled enough evidence to successfully convict multiple American Nazis before and during World War II. They prevented several acts of Nazi sabotage and assassinations on the West Coast. Their work was essential in exposing the work of the fascist organization known as The Silver Shirts. Lewis was the executive director of the Community Relations Committee for seventeen years. After he stepped down, he returned to his law practice.

Lewis’ professional and personal papers are archived  at the University Library at California State University Northridge.

He died of a heart attack at 65.

Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was born Frieda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a singer, dancer, actress, civil rights activist, and French Resistance agent during World War II.

Baker’s mother Carrie McDonald was treated at an exclusively White hospital for six weeks before and after Baker’s birth. The father was identified on the birth certificate as Edw. Many believe Edw. stood for Eddie Carson, a vaudeville drummer. Josephine and her foster son, Jean-Claude Baker suspected Her father was White.

Carrie worked for a German family around the time she got pregnant. Although Baker questioned her paternity her entire life, Carrie refused to discuss it and maintained Eddie Carson was Josephine’s biological father. Carson supported her assertions.

Baker grew up in a racially mixed low-income neighborhood. She wore hand-me downs and often went hungry as a child. Baker went to work as a domestic servant for White families at the age of eight. As punishment for adding too mush soap to the laundry, an employer burned Josephine’s hands.

She left school at twelve years old, became  a waitress, and was homeless several times dancing for money on street corners. She married Willie Wells at the age of thirteen, but their marriage only lasted a few months. After her divorce, Baker joined a street performance group called the Jones Family Band.

In 1921, she married William Howard Baker. Josphine was fifteen and the marriage lasted until 1925. During her teens, Baker tried to rebuild her relationship with her mother, but Carrie disapproved of her daughter becoming an entertainer. Carrie also did not support her daughter’s divorce from William Baker. She traveled to New York City where she landed a place in the chorus line of “Shuffle-Along” an On and Off-Broadway revue starring Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, and Adelaide Hall.

Baker kept her married name after the divorce because she was beginning to gain recognition as an entertainer under the name Baker. When Baker traveled to other cities to play in clubs, she always returned to St. Louis with gifts for her mother and half-sister.

In 1925, Baker sailed to Paris where there were greater opportunities for performers of color. In Paris, her erotic style of dance and risqué costumes won her instant success and recognition. After a successful European tour,  she decided to remain in Paris where she felt valued and accepted.

Baker eventually became the most successful American performer in Paris. She attracted the attention and admiration of Ernest Heminway who spent hours talking with her after her performances. She also drew the attention of Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau.

Baker made four films in Paris, recorded songs, and performed in an opera. Despite her success in Paris, stardom in America eluded her. During performances in America of the 1936 revival of “Ziegfeld Follies,” American critics panned her singing, dancing, and acting abilities. When she returned to France, Baker renounced her U.S. citizenship and applied for Frech citizenship.

In September 1939, after France declared war on Germany, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, the military intelligence agency as an “honorable correspondent.” Her mission was to socialize with prominent Germans, Japanese officials, Italian diplomats, and members of the Vichy government at social functions to listen in on their conversations to try to acquire information useful to the French Resistance.

When the Germans invaded France, Baker left Paris for her home in the south of France. There, she housed people who members of the resistance and supplied them with visas. As an entertainer, Baker could move freely throughout Europe to neutral countries such as Portugal and to South American countries where she delivered information to be transmitted to England about harbors, airfields, or concentrations of German troops in the Western France. Messages were written with invisible ink on Baker’s sheet music.

Baker arranged a trip to Northern Africa while recovering from a bout of pneumonia. She used the trip to help the resistance by heading north from Morrocco into Spain. During this time Baker had the last of several miscarriages which resulted in her developing sepsis and peritonitis after an emergency hysterectomy. After her recovery, Baker remained in North Africa entertaining British, French, and American soldiers. No civilians were allowed to attend, and the concerts were free to all members of the military.

After the war, Baker was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Lègion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker resumed her musical career in Paris after the war. In 1951, she was invited back to the United States for a night club engagement in Miami. She refused to perform to a segregated audience and won. Her performances were all sold out. Afterward, she toured the United States performing to desegregated audiences and receiving rave reviews. Her tour ended in Harlem where she was honored as the NAACP’s Woman of the Year in 1952. When she arrived in New York with her husband, who was White, they were refused rooms in thirty-six hotels.

Baker clashed with the owners of The Stork Club over their policy of discouraging Black patrons after she was refused service. The actress Grace Kelly came to her aid taking Baker by the arm and storming out with her guests. When her old friend columnist Walter Winchell didn’t support her position, she publicly called him out. Winchell responded by accusing Baker of being a communist sympathizer. As a result, Baker’s work visa in the U.S. was cancelled. She had to cancel the rest of the tour and return to France. Baker was not allowed back in the United States for almost ten years.

During her American exile, Fidel Castro invited Baker to perform in Cuba.

Baker supported the American Civil Rights Movement  by writing letters and speaking at clubs and universities.

She adopted eleven children and became the foster mother of Jean-Claude Baker (her twelfth child). Baker’s adopted children disputed Jean-Claude’s claims he was ever officially her foster son. She purposely adopted children from all over the world. She raised them speaking multiple languages and with different religions. She wanted to demonstrate that children could get along in multicultural and multi-racial households.

Baker married four times and later in life, Robert Brady became her partner. Baker died after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of sixty-eight.  

Source for photo of telegram:

https://digital-collections.csun.edu/digital/collection/InOurOwnBackyard/id/187

This image has been included for the information of our readers with no intent of copyright infringement If it is not in the Public Domain.

Photo of Josephine Baker is in the public domain

Sources for this article:

www.faena.com