American-born French performance artist Josephine Baker will be entered into Paris's Panthéon mausoleum, making her the first Black woman to receive the honor.

Baker died in 1975 and is buried in Monaco, so she will not actually be interred in the mausoleum but will instead be honored on November 30 with the installation of a plaque.

The Panthéon is a burial place for some 80 French national heroes, such as scientist Marie Curie and writer Victor Hugo. Baker will be just the sixth woman to be so honored.

French President Emmanuel Macron approved Baker's induction after a campaign led by her family and a petition with about 38,000 signatures.

Born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1906, Baker initially performed in segregated vaudeville venues in the US, becoming one of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1925, Baker got her big break — she was signed by La Revue Nègre, an all-Black French production playing at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Throughout the 1920s and '30s, she wowed French audiences with her provocative dance routines.

After touring Europe in 1926, she returned to Paris to star in the famous Folies Bergère. Her performances were consciously sexy and exotic. On one occasion, she performed the Danse Sauvage in a costume that consisted only of a string of artificial bananas.

She adopted a pet cheetah, Chiquita, who appeared with her in a diamond-studded collar. Chiquita often slipped her leash and jumped into the orchestra pit, terrorizing the musicians and adding an extra dimension to Baker's performances.

In 1936, Baker returned to the US to star in the Ziegfeld Follies but played to bad reviews and was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee. Heartbroken — and frustrated by a still-segregated America — Baker returned to Paris in 1937, married a French citizen, and acquired French citizenship herself.

During the German occupation, she actively supported the French Resistance, using her celebrity to gather information about German troop movements and military installations, which she passed along to Allied intelligence. Baker also sheltered Resistance supporters and helped them acquire visas, so they could join the Free French forces in Britain.

For her wartime contributions, Baker received the Croix de Guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance military medals, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest award.

Although she remained a French citizen, Baker traveled to the US after the war and was shocked to find herself denied accommodation in no less than 36 American hotels because of her race.

In 1951 Baker was refused service at the historic Stork Club in Manhattan. Film star Grace Kelly — who was at the club at the time — rushed over, took Baker by the arm, and stormed out of the club with her entire party in protest. Baker and Kelly remained friends for the rest of their lives.

In response to the pervasive racism she encountered, Baker wrote a series of articles and gave several lectures in historically Black colleges on the emerging civil rights movement. In 1963, Baker was the only official woman speaker at the March on Washington. She delivered her speech in her Free French uniform.

After Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, his widow, Coretta Scott King, reportedly approached Baker to replace her late husband as leader of the movement. Baker declined on the grounds that her children were too young to lose their mother.

Baker was legally married four times, and at the time of her death was in a long-term relationship with a fifth male partner. She also had relationships with several women.

In her early days in Paris, Baker was with American-born Ada "Bricktop" Smith, a jazz singer, dancer, and owner of the Chez Bricktop nightclub. Later, Baker dated the famous French novelist Collette. Baker was also linked romantically to Bisexual Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, notably in the 2002 film Frida.