Savage unveiled *Lift Every Voice and Sing* at the New York World’s Fair; she was the only Black artist commissioned.
On April 30, 1939, Augusta Savage’s monumental plaster sculpture Lift Every Voice and Sing, popularly known as The Harp, was unveiled for the New York World’s Fair. Savage was the only Black artist and one of only four women commissioned to create a work for the fair’s Fine Arts section, making the commission itself a major barrier-breaking achievement.
The sculpture was historically significant for its scale, visibility, and symbolism. Drawing on the song often called the Black national anthem, the work celebrated Black musical and cultural achievement at one of the most public exhibitions in the United States. Even though the original work was destroyed after the fair, its image and meaning endured as a statement of Black artistic grandeur at a moment when segregation and exclusion still defined much of American life.
Augusta Savage created the work in a climate that denied Black artists access to monumental public commissions. Her selection for the fair and the resonance of The Harp remain central to her legacy as a sculptor who insisted on Black presence in national culture.