When this fancy restaurant refused to serve Josephine Baker,
She lawyered up — and proved that bigotry doesn’t pay
Josephine Baker arrived with friends in tow at Manhattan’s Stork Club on October 16, 1951, craving shrimp cocktail and steak. It was one of the most prestigious supper clubs in the world, and there seemed no better place for the famous dancer to celebrate her last show at the Roxy. An hour after she placed her order, she noticed that others around her were being served while service to her table had all but stopped.
What Baker didn’t know was that club owner Sherman Billingsley had arranged it that way. “Who let her in?” Billingsley had said to a waiter upon seeing her seated in the Cub Room. Baker, who had become the first black entertainer to star in a motion picture and who’d achieved her fame and fortune in Europe, was no stranger to discrimination. She refused to perform in segregated clubs in the States. In addition, she was a major supporter of the civil rights movement and unapologetically vocal about racism. Once she realized what was happening, she called her lawyer, Walter White, who was also executive secretary of the NAACP. From the same phone booth, she also called Deputy Police Commissioner Billy Rowe about being denied service. After the phone calls were placed, a waiter rushed over to the table and finally brought out the steak the star had ordered. But Baker refused to eat it.
https://timeline.com/josephine-baker-wanted-dinner-and-lawyered-up-when-racists-refused-761faf7c79de
= new reply since forum marked as read
where a fancy restaurant will mysteriously lose any record of the reservation you made upon seeing your dark face. When you go to the restroom, they think you're trying to leave without paying. Even with a reservation, they walk you past all the nice empty tables to the nasty little one in the back by the kitchen.
I much prefer little hole in the wall ethnic places over fine dining. I can make better steak and shrimp at home anyway. 
Do you know if she ever played in Miami and/or Philadelphia? I ask because my dad and 2 of his brothers (along with several investors) had very upscale clubs in each those locales. Don't ask me the names of the clubs, my pissedness at sTrumpet and RepubloCON politics has fried too many brain cells... But Harry Belafonte played the Miami club in the 50's. And IIRC, Ms. Baker had a show there as well. Don't quote me as fact - this is kid recollection, but I remember dad, Uncle George, and Uncle Vince playing poker and reminiscing about the Miami club's only "sellout".
The jerkoff at the Stork Club really screwed up - monetarily as well as being a bigot. Ms. Baker was a pioneer and boy, howdy, that would not only have paid off in $$$, but the publicity (a little controversy, a lot of standing ovations, newspaper coverage...)!
Years after dad died, the extended family was doing a "remember this"; mom brought up Mr. Belafonte because she was still madly in love!
She also thought Ms. Baker had done a couple of shows, but we were never able to pin it down. If only I hadn't been so damn young!!
THANK YOU!!!!!! Great memory and so I owe you. 
