Carlton Mackey is the Assistant Director of Education, Community Dialogue and Engagement at the High Museum of Art. In this newly created role at the museum, Mackey will use complex visual culture to strengthen self-awareness, frame productive public discussion, and engender institutional empathy regarding the fundamental issues defining contemporary society.
Mackey is also the Co-Creator/Co-Director of the Emory University Arts and Social Justice Fellowship Program. The Arts and Social Justice Fellows program brings leading Atlanta artists into Emory classrooms to help students translate their learning into creative expressions of activism in the name of racial and social justice.
Mackey is the creator and former Director of the Ethics & the Arts Program at the Emory University Center for Ethics and a Lecturer in Emory's Department of Film and Media.
Mackey is the creator of BLACK MEN SMILE®, a viral social media platform, empowerment movement, and apparel brand with a mission of “amplifying the revolutionary power of Black joy.” Mackey is the author of 50 Shades of Black: Sexuality and Skin Tone in the Formation of Identity.
As a community advocate, Carlton serves on the Atlanta Board of Education Ethics Commission, on the Board of Directors of Foreverfamily, an Atlanta non-profit surrounding youth with one or more incarcerated parent with the love of family and providing regular visitation, and the Advisory Board of The Alliance Theatre.
Mackey’s work blends his unique combination of social consciousness, creativity, scholarship, and social connection to create powerful impressions that invite new discovery and personal transformation.