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Police apprehended Johnson after receiving a call about a customer “causing a disturbance” and “screaming at patrons” at BrickTop’s restaurant in the city’s downtown area, the incident report said.

According to the report, officers identified and located Johnson after she left BrickTop’s and went down the street, “screaming profanities at a male who was walking with her.”

Eugene Bullard, the world’s first Black fighter pilot who was also awarded the Croix de Guerre, ran a series of successful Paris nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably Le Grand Duc where Langston Hughes worked as a busboy and where Ada Smith, the performer known as Bricktop, worked as a hostess who would later open her own celebrated nightclub.

Of course Josephine Baker is performing the night that Lee goes to Bricktop’s; of course she’s singing “Blue Skies,” the lyrics aligning perfectly with Lee’s own hopeful mood.

Bricktop, who later took Baker under her wing, first performed.