Richmond Planet

PROTEST EXCLUSION
OF GIRL FROM ART
INSTITUTE IN PARIS

By the decision of a committee of American architects, sculptors and painters, a colored girl, Miss Augusta Savage has been denied opportunity to attend the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts in France, the committee basing its decision upon Miss Savage's color. The committee consists of the following individuals:

Edwin D. Blashfield, President of the National Academy of Design; Howard Greenley, President of the Architectural League; Thomas Hastings, architect; J. Monroe Hewlett, President of the Mural Painters; Hermon A. MacNeil, sculptor and James Gamble Rogers, architect.

The N. A. A. C. P., in a statement condemning this act of bigotry, asserted that the institutions represented by the committee were in the shadow of the disgrace incurred by their leaders. The N. A. A. C. P. statement said in part:

The situation created by the exclusion of Miss Savage from the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts, an institution conducted by a government for which Miss Savage's brother fought in the war, is a serious reflection upon the men who have capitulated to the despicable Southern race prejudice.

"The decision made by these men whose standing in the community ought to have fortified their defense of the domain of the fine arts which knows no race and no nation, is unworthy of true artists. The power which their reputation would have given to a defense of tolerance and an insistence upon opportunity for this colored girl, they have cravenly surrendered to the bigotry against which true artists in every nation and in every age have unceasingly contended."