August Savage Accomplishments

The Harlem Renaissance was a vast artistic, academic, public movement, and musical advancement that changed the way art was viewed in a modernization. Artists like Jacob Lawrence, Augusta Savage, Lois Mailou Jones, Aaron Douglas were just some of the many who influenced the art world. The writing was also a large piece of the Harlem Renaissance, people like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, and many others were agitators who used their writing to influence. These people and many others utilized the skill they have and used their varying art forms to mold and manipulate the current world they lived in.

Claude McKay is an example of a writer who endeavored to change the way the world regarded him.

Savage was born with a knack for sculpting and attempted multiple careers involving her art. Naturally, Savage flourished when she was able to easily obtain clay. Savage moved often, somehow thinking of a new career opportunity that would ultimately end in failure. Savage was to attend a French Arts Program, but the board denied her application. A member of the board, Hermon MacNeil invited Savage to study under him as a form of an apology. Savage was commissioned to sculpt portraits of famous black nationalists, both pieces were commended for their impact vigor. Because of Savages’ bravado, she earned a Fellowship that allowed her to study in Paris in 1929. In 1939, Savage was commissioned to create a piece influenced by James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. It was Savage’s most known work, and was called, “The Harp”. Regrettably, the piece and many others were not cast and were ruined or lost. Savage ensured that African American woman had a place in the artistic world during a time of

Zora Neale Hurston was an African American novelist who published more books in the 1960’s. Growing up, Hurston was shielded from racism and had a yearning for knowledge. She had always had an effortless skill for storytelling and studied folklore and oral history in her home state. In 1935, Mules and Men had been her best selling work, yet she only earned $943.75 for it. Hurston continued to write and publish and was criticized by black male writers for refusing to bring a more political side to her stories. Hurston suffered financially, and yet in all of her stories, she continued to not be bitter or harsh on the current happenings. She is thought to be one of the most influential writers now, but in 1960 she was poor and died alone in a