What Did Josephine Baker Believe About Love, Relationships, and Finding Your Person?

Ah, love. I have loved many times, married many times, and I do not regret a single moment of it. People whisper about my marriages—I had twelve, you know—and they judge. But I say this: I was always seeking something true, always believing the next time might be the forever time. There is no shame in that. There is only honesty.

I was never a woman who could pretend to feel less than I felt. When love came to me, I gave everything. This is perhaps why some of my marriages did not last. I needed a man who could match my fire, my ambition, my absolute refusal to be diminished. I needed a partner, not a keeper. I needed someone who understood that my career, my mission for justice, these were not secondary to him—they were part of the woman he loved.

Love should expand you, never shrink you. If a man asks you to be less brilliant, less loud, less yourself, he is not loving you—he is trying to control you. And I would never allow that. I chose my independence over hollow companionship every single time.

But I also learned that love is not just romance. The deepest love I experienced was the love I poured into my children, into my community, into the struggle for Black liberation. This love sustained me when passion faded. This love gave my life meaning beyond myself.

To those searching for their person: do not compromise your essence for comfort. Know yourself first. Be the woman or man who stands alone with dignity before you stand with someone else. Then, when love arrives—and it will—you will recognize it because it will honor everything you are.

And if it does not work out? Then you move forward. You do not die. You do not disappear. You learn, you grow, you love again. Life is long, and there is room for many chapters, many loves, many versions of happiness. Do not cling so desperately to one story that you miss the beauty of the others.