William E. Harmon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes

With its private endowment, popular social mission, and interracial alliances, [it] possessed a much greater public relations capacity than any other prior initiatives....Due in large part to the activities of the Harmon Foundation, African Americans emerged as a distinct presence in the American art world.

[2]Among the many recipients of the awards in literature and the fine arts were Claude McKay, Hale Woodruff, Palmer Hayden, Archibald Motley (his winning piece was The Octoroon Girl), Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.

[3] According to Gates and Higginbotham, "...submissions in the fine arts category was the chief venue open to African American artists"[1] Awards were given solely on the basis of achievements in the previous year.

However, the Harmon Foundation did not accept this proposal, and Chesnutt never learned of this "acknowledgment of high esteem from a distinguished panel of his literary peers both black and white.

On the obverse side is embossed a ship in full sail on the open sea with the inscription "Harmon Foundation" around the margin.