Augusta Savage: The Fighter In Us All

Augusta Savage was a remarkable creative black woman of her time. She was a sculptor who was born about twenty-two years before the beginning of World War I, in 1892. By the time of the Harlem Renaissance, she was making a name for herself as a sculptor and activist of notice. 

Augusta was bold not in her life but, also in the images that she chose to work with. Despite being born to a conservative family and a minister for a father, who forbade her to work in the arts, she created some of the most memorable pieces of the Harlem Renaissance. Even though she has been forgotten. Even, after moving from her hometown of Green Cove Springs, Fla, which had plenty of clay, to Harlem which had very little naturally.

 One of her first commissions was the piece, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” eventually renamed “The Harp”. It was a 16-foot sculpture cast in plaster and inspired by the song written by James Weldon Johnson who was a personal friend. It depicted several black youths in order of height, like a harp’s strings, singing. 

The Harp

In this piece, I feel she gives a powerful cast of not only the upliftment of black people but a call to the nation to take these notes and carry them with you into being a better nation. It is a documentation of the culture of the African American community and its power to move a country as we saw with music in the 1960s and 70s. 

Augusta was a fighter because to be an artist she not only defied her father but the black community of that time, which often had conservative ideals about what a black woman should or should not be doing. She was granted a scholarship to pursue post-graduate studies at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts in Paris. However, when they found out she was a black woman the scholarship was rescinded. This was, unfortunately, the indicative of the life of black people in the United States of America more often than not. However, didn’t stop her or her art. 

I believe it was the spirit of the fight for herself and others that lead to her creation of The Pugilist (1942). 

The Pugilist

A bold and brash display of confidence in a black man that is not too often seen in the era nearing the end of WWII. It is as if she was saying that despite all the vitriol towards us and the efforts to oppress and interrupt the community, we are fighters and you will never stop us! This same spirit permeates the Black Lives Matter movement today and is needed given the types of laws conservative white politicians passed. I thank the Ancestors for such a talented and bold pugilist willing to fight for herself and her people. In essence, living up to her last name in against white supremacy. Let us all remember Augusta Savage! Ase.