Carlton Mackey the Assistant Director, Community Dialogue and Engagement at the High Museum of Art. In this newly created role at the High, 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.
Formerly Mackey served as the creator and 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 and empowerment movement for Black men to “celebrate the way we see ourselves”.
As a community advocate, Carlton serves on the Atlanta Board of Education Ethics Commission and on the Advisory Board of Foreverfamily, an Atlanta non-profit surrounding youth with one or more incarcerated parent with the love of family and providing regular visitation.
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.
