Plans for a granite sculpture highlighting Augusta authors planted a seed in Corey Rogers’ mind
Sculpted by artist Craig Gray in 2022, “Book Bench – a Novel Idea,” is part of the current Augusta Sculpture Trail, which was installed at the beginning of 2023, and features the titles of books and the last names of their authors. One of them is Yerby’s “The Foxes of Harrow.”
“I kept thinking how nice it would be to have one of these type of benches exclusively to the Sly Fox, Mr. Frank Garvin Yerby,” said Rogers, the executive director of the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History.
On Sept. 5, Yerby’s birthday, Rogers helped unveil a bench devoted to Yerby’s works in the courtyard of the Laney Museum, directly across from the site where Laney once taught Yerby.
The unveiling was one of several events scheduled for Sept. 4-6 to honor Yerby, the Augusta-born author, who had several novels transformed into films in the 1940s and 1950s. After the unveiling, there was a viewing of “The Foxes of Harrow” starring Maureen O’Hara and Rex Harrison.
“Frank Yerby is the other big celeb, international star that we often don’t focus on,” he said.
He cited Jessye Norman and James Brown as two other celebrities who are deservedly honored, but Yerby hasn’t been recognized as much.
According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Yerby “was the first African American to write a series of best-selling novels and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.”
“It’s time we start speaking the name of Frank Yerby more often,” he said.
The sculpture joins other piece of public art in the Golden Blocks area of Augusta.
Paine College President Cheryl Evans Jones said the best-selling author is proudly honored often at the college where Yerby received his Bachelor of Arts. He penned the words to the “Paine College hymn.”
“We sing the ‘Paine College Hymn’ many more times than the ‘Alma Mater.’ I’m not sure anyone knows we have an ‘Alma Mater,’” she said. The hymn is sung at the weekly assembly as well as at graduations and convocations.
The Yerby celebration opened Wednesday with a book discussion of “A Woman Named Fancy” at the replica of Yerby’s home on the Paine College campus. It culminates at 10:30 a.m. Friday with a road renaming ceremony at Hall and Eighth Streets.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
