Photo by Isaiah
ABOUT
Carlton Mackey is the Assistant Director, 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 co-founder and former Director of the Ethics & the Arts Program at the Emory University Center for Ethics and a former Lecturer in Emory's Department of Film and Media.
In 2014, after the killing of Mike Brown in Missouri, Mackey created 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 Advisory Board of the Emory University Center for Ethics and 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. Formerly, Mackey served on the Atlanta Board of Education Ethics Commission and on the Advisory Board of The Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center.
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.
FEATURED STORIES
After partnering with Target national Black History Month rollout, Mackey discusses how joining boycotts against Target’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are also hitting Black-owned businesses with products still on the retailer’s shelves.
IN THE NEWS
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CURRENT WORK
CLIPS
