In 1923, Savage applied for a Summer art program at the Fountainbleau School of Fine Arts in France. She was accepted but when the American selection committee found out she was black, they rescinded the offer, fearing objections from Southern white women. Savage was deeply upset and questioned the committee, beginning the first of many public fights for equal rights in her life. Though appeals were made to the French government to reinstate the award, they had no effect and Savage was unable to study at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. The incident got press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, and eventually, the sole supportive committee member sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil – who at one time had shared a studio with Henry Ossawa Tanner – invited her to study with him. She later cited him as one of her teachers.