The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s was an incredible and inspiring time in American history, where brilliant Black artists, writers, poets, intellectuals, and more reclaimed the African American narrative and developed a new cultural identity. Writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke made history as part of the movement, but a lesser known artist of the Harlem Renaissance was actually one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century.

Augusta Savage, was a highly accomplished sculptor, an educator, and an activist who tirelessly used her platform to demand justice and equality for Black people in America, particularly Black artists. Her work was game-changing and her legacy continues to remind us how important it is to stand up for ourselves and peers in face of prejudice.

Savage was born Augusta Christine Fells on February 29, 1892, in Green Cove Springs, Florida. The daughter of a poor Methodist minister, she was drawn to sculpting from a young age, despite her father’s at times violent disapproval.

“From the time I can first recall the rain falling on the red clay in Florida,” she’s quoted as saying, “I wanted to make things. When my brothers and sisters were making mud pies, I would be making ducks and chickens with the mud.”

Growing up, she made a reputation for herself as a skilled sculptor. Her high school principal took notice of her talent and encouraged her to pursue art, and her work received a special prize at the West Palm Beach County Fair. In 1921, she journeyed to New York City with less than $5 to her name to pursue her dreams as an artist. She attended the scholarship-based Cooper Union in Manhattan, having beat out 142 other male applicants, and received further scholarships to cover room and board. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, she completed the four-year program in three years.

The prodigious sculptor excelled in portraits and was tasked with sculpting a bust of W. E. B. Du Bois for the Harlem Library and later, busts of Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, Frederick Douglas, and more. Known for capturing Black subjects, one of her most famous works was Gamin, a portrait of a Black child based on the likeness of her nephew. The piece, poignant and expressive, landed on the cover of the magazine Opportunity and led to more, well, opportunities to study abroad and gain more acclaim.

Courtesy Federal Art Project, Photographic Division collection, 1935-1942. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

 

Despite these remarkable accomplishments and the recognition that came with it, Savage was still denied opportunities for simply being Black and a woman.

In 1923, she was awarded a scholarship to Fontainebleau School of the Fine Arts in France, but her acceptance was rescinded when the school realized Savage was Black. Her predicament was met with media attention and massive public support, but despite the pressure to change their decision, Fountainbleau upheld their decision. Savage wrote of the situation:

“I hear so many complaints to the effect that Negroes do not take advantage of the educational opportunities offered them. Well, one of the reasons why more of my race do not go in for higher education is that as soon as one of us gets his head above the crowd there are millions of feet ready to crush it back again to that dead level of commonplace thus creating a racial deadline of culture in our Republic. For how am I to compete with other American artists if I am not to be given the same opportunity?”

These frustrations led to a career of documenting and celebrating Blackness in her work — as well as a lifetime of creating spaces, platforms, and opportunities for other Black artists to thrive.

In the early 1930s, she opened the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, which later became the Harlem Community Art Center. Over 1500 students attended the school to learn various forms of fine art, including some of the most iconic artists of the Harlem Renaissance like Charles Alston, Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, Ernest Crichlow, and more.

On top of teaching, Savage dedicated herself to fighting for Black artists to be included in projects under the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. She also co-founded the Harlem Artist’s Guild in support of African American artists to “encourage young talent, to foster a relationship between artists and the public, and to improve artists’ standards of living and opportunities.”

In 1939, Savage was the only Black woman to be commissioned to create a piece for that New York World’s Fair’s Board of Design in what would become one of her most well-known works. The Harp, was a 16 foot sculpture inspired by the anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Even though it was said to be one of the most popular and photographed works that year, it was demolished along with the rest of the fair.

That same year, she was the first Black woman to open an art gallery which she dedicated to exhibiting Black artists. At the opening reception, she declared, “We do not ask any special favors as artists because of our race. We only want to present to you our works and ask you to judge them on their merits.”

Courtesy New-York Historical Society. The John Axelrod Collection—Frank B. Bemis Fund, Charles H. Bayley Fund, and The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection.

 

Despite all her efforts and accolades, Savage’s career was hampered by financial difficulties as she worked to house and support her family. Many of her surviving pieces are in clay or plaster because casting them in bronze was too expensive. After her two galleries went under and Savage struggled under the pressure of financial difficulties, she left her illustrious art career behind and moved to Saugerties, New York, where she worked as a laboratory assistant and also ran a summer arts program. She died from cancer on March 26, 1962, in New York City at the age of 70.

Savage’s work brought grace, poise, humanity, and life to the portrayal of African Americans in art at a time when Black artists were absent from mainstream art and cultural spaces and contemporary depictions of Black people were rooted in racist caricatures and stereotypes. Though only a fraction of her work still exists today, they remain a testament to her belief that talent, hard work, and vision, transcends race — even when opportunity doesn’t. Her work is full of hope, expressiveness, and groundbreaking candid Blackness. Her legacy lies in her steadfast effort towards equality and autonomy for herself and the artists that came after her.

She fearlessly broke down barriers, becoming the first Black woman to do a number of things in her field — and working to make sure she wasn’t the last.

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About the author.
Sam Mani writes about work, creativity, wellness, and equity — when she’s not cooking, binging television, or annoying her cat.

What makes a powerful piece of art? Is it purely aesthetic? Is it the technical skill and precision that goes into the work? Is it the emotional response it evokes? Or is it the way art challenges that audience? Is it the way we see the work or the way the work makes us see ourselves?

Known for her use of traditional 19th century-style silhouettes and stark Black caricatures rooted in racist imagery, Kara Walker is one of the most important and celebrated artists today — whose unflinching, thought-provoking works have generated plenty of controversy and even more important, necessary conversation for over two decades. Throughout her career, Walker has proven time and time again that shocking art can be powerful and that powerful art serves to challenge us.

Walker was born in Stockton, California, in 1969, but moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia, at the age of 13 when her father became a professor at Georgia State University. Growing up in Georgia, in a town that witnessed the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, Walker grew up in a far more racially charged environment than what she experienced as a child in California.

With a painter as a father, Walker knew from a young age that she wanted to be an artist. In 1991, she received her BFA in Painting from Atlanta College of Art and in 1994, her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

In 1994, she burst onto the art scene with her mural, Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred B’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. Featuring what would become her signature black Victorian-era silhouettes set against a white wall, the piece is filled with caricatures of Black slave characters and white master characters with exaggerated features and violent sexual overtones. The scene is jarring, and unsettling, the depraved whimsy of the antebellum imagery, weighed down by the gravity of its violence, which is to say, the violence of America’s enduring racism.

Courtesy MoMA. Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart, 1994.

 

Reflecting on why she was drawn to silhouettes, she said:

“What I recognized, besides narrative and historicity and racism, was this very physical displacement: the paradox of removing a form from a blank surface that in turn creates a black hole. I was struck by the irony of so many of my concerns being addressed: blank/black, hole/whole, shadow/substance, etc. (There’s also that great quote from Sojourner Truth: ‘I sell the shadow to support the substance.’)”

Over the next decade, Walker continued creating large-scale pieces featuring sharp silhouettes. She drew from the same visual language of pre-Civil War caricatures and themes of violence and sexuality, lust and depravity, bondage and levity, with works like Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On) and Why I Like White Boys, An Illustrated Novel.

In 1997, she became the second youngest person ever to receive the MacArthur “genius” grant for her work and in 2002 she began teaching at Columbia University. She has also won the Larry Aldrich Award and the Deutsche Bank Prize.

Her first sculptural piece and one of her best known works was 2014’s A Subtlety, also known as the Marvelous Sugar Baby, centered on a striking 35-foot tall, 75-foot long sculpture of a sphinx. The all-white sculpture was coated in sugar and, like her previous work, was an exaggerated Black caricature, drawing from mammy tropes and addressing the history of slave labor in the sugar industry.

The enormity and lasting power of Kara Walker’s work speaks to the depth of racial trauma inflicted on Black people that she’s drawing from, as well as the depth of her own vulnerability as an artist. Walker has referred to her silhouette pieces as a “stream of consciousness,” a method of navigating the different “unruly” pieces of herself, her identity, the traits foisted on her as a Black woman in America, and her own sexual experiences. On that note, she’s also described the limitations put on her as a Black artist. “To be successful as an African-American artist, you have to spill your guts constantly to create a dialogue,” Walker said.

Throughout her career, Walker, her work, and its accompanying recognition have been met with controversy and backlash, which is unsurprising given the volatile content. She has been accused of producing art for white audiences and for creating derogatory and offensive work by employing the racist caricatures without any redemption for the subjects or the audience. While there is plenty to say about art, whiteness, and accessibility, what makes Walker’s work so powerful is the absence of redemption. There is no out.

Whether it’s a silhouette, or the sprawling fountain that pierces the myth of empire, Walker’s pieces force the audience to contend with the ugly insidiousness of how Black people have been treated and portrayed in America. And yes, this confrontation is very much on purpose. Walker has said:

“I didn’t want a completely passive viewer…I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful.”

The viewer cannot escape Walker’s work. They cannot escape the perversion or humiliation or pain, and there is power both for the artist and as the audience member to sit in the discomfort of that, of America’s history. There is nothing to take refuge in.

For an artist who creates such stunning, detailed art, Kara Walker’s work sure is hard to look at, the near-slapstick physicality of characters only underpinning a certain embedded humiliation. Her uncanny ability to create striking, satirical visual commentary on power and desire through the lens of America’s (and broader, colonialism’s) sordid history of slavery and abuse has challenged us not only to think more critically about history, but to think critically about ourselves. It’s what has made her work so poignant over the last nearly 30 years. It’s what has made it such powerful, transcendent art.

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About the author.
Sam Mani writes about work, creativity, wellness, and equity — when she’s not cooking, binging television, or annoying her cat.

You might have imagined that at this point, there is more robust diversity in medicine, but the old truth that doctors skew white and male still holds. Only 5 percent of American physicians today are African American — and just 2 percent are Black women. Unpacking this statistic is complex. Part of the problem is pipeline — at American Medical Schools, only 7% of the student body identify as Black. Other components of this grim reality lie in the alleyways of racism, both implicit and explicit. The women of color who do make it through the system to become physicians have to reckon with a medical care landscape that often leaves them, as Black women, vulnerable to more significant injury.

Research shows that implicit racial bias may cause doctors to spend less time with Black patients and that African Americans receive less effective care. Healthcare providers are more likely to underestimate their Black patients’ pain, dismiss their complaints, and ignore their symptoms. The sad truth is that racism disproportionately affects the quality of care that birthing mothers receive.

The birth story of tennis supernova Serena Williams is a stark warning of how the system can fail even the most privileged Black women.

The day after giving birth to her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Williams felt short of breath and alerted her healthcare providers that she was having trouble breathing. Keenly aware of her body and history of developing blood clots in her lungs, she was particularly concerned. But they ignored her concerns, chalking it up to the medication Williams was on: “it’s making her confused,” they said. But Serena Williams persisted and was eventually able to press her providers to give her the care she needed. It saved her life. For so many Black women, however, when a doctor’s initial reaction is not to take their symptoms or pain seriously, they don’t get the care they need — and often suffer greatly for it. The sad thing is that Serena William’s story is all too common. African American maternal mortality rates are a whopping three to four times higher than for white women — and these deaths are often preventable.

All of this makes the success of Dr. Antonette Whitehead even more notable — she is a doctor, despite being a member of a group for whom medicine is not equal. Being a Black woman who delivers babies is social justice in action. And for her POC patients, she offers the opportunity to lay some thorny fears to rest. But Dr. Antonette Whitehead is not just a bringer of babies — she is a bringer of change. Let’s step inside her world to learn more.

What is your background?

I am part Cherokee and Seminole on my Mom’s side and Choctaw on my Dad’s side. Also, my paternal grandmother is from the Bahamas, so there’s Caribbean too, mixed with African American, of course.

When did you know you wanted to be a doctor?

My desire to be a doctor started at 7. My mom had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and suffered a pretty significant heart attack early on. She loves to tell a story about me dissecting turkey for Thanksgiving and having an iron stomach. At first, my draw to medicine was heart-focused because I saw my mom in pain — I wanted to heal the heart. But then in college, I took a lot of Women’s Studies courses and began to learn about the health care women were receiving. It was the beginning of my segue to Obstetrics and Gynecology. I did a research project based on women’s experiences with their first and second labors and genuinely enjoyed the research. I kept moving towards the birth part of the human experience. By the time I got to medical school, that’s all I wanted to do — make sure women had good and safe deliveries, solid healthcare, stellar prenatal, and health maintenance.

You mentioned your mother as part of what inspired you to become a doctor, what kind of work did your family do?

If you look at our family history in terms of life callings, it’s all over the place — a lot of teachers. A lot of people who work on the line — I’m from Detroit, aka Motor City. A lot of blue-collar. My sister got her Master’s and Ph.D. in nursing; she researches heart health and women of color.

My uncle is an anesthesiologist. Other than that, no lineage of people who went to medical school, which highlights a prevalent disparity between majority and minority. My dad has a business background; he worked with automotive companies and then went back to school and got a Master’s; he now teaches history. My mother finished high school but never went to college. She jokes that all our degrees are her degrees because she was the bedrock that got us through.

Where did you go to medical school?

I went to Wayne State University in downtown Detroit, about a mile away from where I grew up. I tried my hardest to get to NYC but didn’t land here till I was 30. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and moved home after. Wayne State was a great place to go to school. The hospital attached to the school cares for a very inner-city population. The patients didn’t have a lot of resources and were often very sick, but I learned a great deal from them and felt privileged to be able to help. The beautiful thing about my training was that it was so hands-on and intense. By the time I did my residency in Chicago, I felt I had far more experience taking care of very sick and complicated patients than someone coming from a more advantaged medical school climate.

The cool thing about going to medical school in Detroit was that it allowed me to see more people like me, which felt very empowering. Because it is in downtown Detroit, many of the people who go to school there are from Detroit and are African American and Latino. People of color tend to stay there, so my medical school experience was, perhaps, unique.

How did diversity impact your medical school experience?

At Wayne State University, I was part of a diverse student body, being taught by diverse faculty, and treating diverse patients. I loved that and felt like that was very encouraging. In contrast, when I did my residency at Northwestern in Chicago, I was among the first African American residents to be part of their program in 15 years! Hard to believe but true: a peer of mine and I were the first two people of color in 15 years. At Northwestern University, the people I was learning from were mostly majority, not people of color as they had been at Wayne State. It was a definite shift. There were two African American doctors that I tried to model myself after, and some of the majority teachers too, but it was definitely a different experience. But I have to say that I’m so proud of them as a program. We were trailblazers, and since then, Northwestern has kept up diversity in the program!

Did you experience any challenges related to race or gender when you were in residency?

While I don’t think that I encountered attending physicians who were awkward around me or made me uncomfortable, I sometimes sensed that with the patients. “Are you part of building services, are you a nurse, are you housekeeping?”

Has bias impacted you professionally and personally as a doctor in New York?

I’m very patient-focused and patient-centered, it’s part of why I think I get along so well with the team at NYU. I am all about letting women labor and helping them have a safe and awesome birthing experience. But sometimes, I am taking care of a woman during her labor journey and make a recommendation about what we should do next — and they just don’t hear or accept what I’m saying at all. Then someone comes behind me and suggests the very same thing, and they say yes. I wonder if it’s racism? Sexism? Ageism? All three — none? Is it about seniority, or is it because I’m a woman of color? I’m not sure. I can’t figure out which it is. My medical assistants (who like to make good-natured fun of me for spending so much time with patients) say: “I don’t understand why people are not listening to you. They’d listen to this doctor and that doctor.”

What about interfacing with other doctors?

At NYU, there’s one person I can think of that I had to “prove” myself to: an older male doctor in a position of power. I worked with him for almost eight years, and in all that time, he had never complimented me and continually questioned my management and patient care. One day, however, after a particularly tricky Cesarean section, he walked out of the operating room and said to the patient’s family, “Dr. Whitehead did an excellent job today…” You have to really prove yourself to him before you earn his respect — more for some than for others. The realm of Ob/Gyn was once very male-dominated but has changed considerably over the last two decades. He’s older, so I’ve wondered if this was an issue of seniority, but I suspect sexism was at play. I also wonder if it has to do with me being a woman of color.

As a high-achieving BIPOC female Ob/Gyn, do you face obstacles regularly?

I honestly don’t. However, I like to let my patients get to know me, and feel that my hurdle is that I have some fears that there may be judgment around me being queer — so I don’t let everyone into that side of me.

How has the social justice awakening sparked by George Floyd’s death affected you professionally?

The last few months have been a little difficult with unrest around social justice issues, pandemic challenges, people at home. I have been talking to my daughter about racial injustice, and that has carried over to work.

My colleagues and I have been discussing the protests and social justice awakening — and I’ve shared that I want us as a practice to take a stance on what’s happening. I think it has helped open their eyes. I feel they have begun to recognize me more as a woman of color. Until these last few months, I never talked about race. I don’t think that there was un-recognition in a negative way; they simply saw me as their talented, competent medical partner. One nurse that I am close to at NYU said: “Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’ve always thought that you were awesome, but I didn’t even think about the fact that you’re African American until now.” But now, as a queer woman of color, I have become more vocal about wanting to establish our practice as one that cares for ALL women. Happy to say that my colleagues have become a little more woke.

My wife, Candace, jokes that I’m having a re-awakening that I’m a Black woman (laughs). Becoming a mother, raising a woman of color, makes me feel I have to have something more to say about things. The silver lining of this pandemic and social unrest is that people have been part of the change. Now my question is, what am I going to do about that?

What is it that you are drawn to do about social justice?

I have several patients that teach in Harlem and in Brooklyn, who have invited me to come to talk to children in their schools and be a mentor. I started mentoring just before COVID-19 hit. Thinking back to college and even high school, it would have been good to see more women who look like me — or men, people of color in general. I want to show that you can be a person of color and achieve your dreams.

Now that I am a mother, doctor, and wife, I am ready to give back more fully to the community. I would love to do something for women in terms of talking about health, how to take care of our bodies. I am thinking about partnering with Cumbe, a center for diaspora dance and music in Brooklyn.

Can you share your insights into the crisis of African American maternal health in the USA?

I have to tell you from a personal perspective when I was pregnant; I was deathly afraid. Even as a privileged woman — with a good income and insurance, and some of my best colleagues taking care of me — I was still very, very worried about developing blood pressure issues or gestational diabetes or any of the other comorbidities that we know are higher for moms of color. I’ll be transparent: I was terrified I could die because my delivery became complicated.

Is this part of why you feel diversity in medicine matters?

Absolutely. My POC patients are sometimes extremely concerned about making sure I am on call for their deliveries because they are afraid that a majority doctor may not be as attuned to what they need for pain management or in the face of complications. “How can I make sure you’re on call when I’m in labor because I’m scared no one will listen to me about my pain control or how I’m feeling. Am I going to be listened to? Will I be heard?”

The great thing about NYU is that we have not seen that discrepancy in maternal health outcomes — and we want to keep it that way. Our nurses have spearheaded a committee called Black Mothers Matter, a group focused on keeping the level of care high for moms of color (and all mothers) by taking a close look at how we manage care for women who come in with possible warning signs like high blood pressure.

Initially, there was some pushback. When we first started talking about this, some doctors and nurses said: “Everyone matters. All moms matter. Why do we have to have a committee about this?” It’s been interesting to see that over the past several months, there has been more and more interest and understanding of why we feel this committee needs to be present. It’s been a cool thing to watch this awareness bloom. And now, I’m so proud to tell my POC patients about the committee and share NYU’s dedication and success in ensuring the health of Black mothers truly matters.

What advice would you give young Black or POC girls who might be thinking about pursuing medicine?

“You’ll never be able to be a mother and have a career.” That was the messaging from some people in my family. Not from majority people — my own family. Believe in yourself and your ability. We tend to beat ourselves up on our journey as women. It will take time, but you can do it, it’s not unattainable. I think that finding mentorship earlier is helpful; I didn’t have that until I got to medical school.

Be positive. Find a mentor. Grab on their coattails — and just GO. Find someone who looks like you who’s doing it who can help show you the way.

Dr. Antonette Whitehead joined the Downtown Women OB/GYN team in August 2011. Moving her practice from the Midwest, she enjoys delivering gynecologic and obstetric care to the women of New York City. Dr. Whitehead received her BS from the University of Michigan in 2003 and her MD in 2007 from Wayne State University. She completed her residency training in Chicago at Northwestern University’s Prentice Women’s Hospital in 2011. Dr. Whitehead completed her board certification in November 2013.

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About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.