Sepia-toned photograph of Augusta Savage's sculpture Lift Every Voice and Sing (Harp), which features a line of people of various heights standing close together so they resemble a harp.

Photograph of Augusta Savage’s Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)
Gelatin silver print, ca. 1939
New York World’s Fair 1939 and 1940 Incorporated Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division

Photograph of Augusta Savage’s Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)

In 1937 the Board of Design for the 1939 World’s Fair offered Augusta Savage a commission to create a sculpture for the event. Savage, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, created a work honoring composer, activist, lawyer, and fellow Floridian James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938). “I have taken for my theme the national Negro anthem,” wrote Savage. “It is a poem written by the late James Weldon Johnson, and set to the music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson. The title is ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’” The sculpture was one of the most popular at the fair, and reproductions were made and sold as souvenirs.

: New York World’s Fair 1939 and 1940 Incorporated Records, Manuscripts and Archi…

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Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

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