Carlton Mackey is on a mission to reclaim Black joy

What they're saying: "Black joy is revolutionary because of all it must resist, how it must insist, and the ways it must persist in order to simply exist," Mackey told Axios. "To show up and say, 'I am worthy of joy' — that's a radical act."

• His day job is as assistant director of community dialogue and engagement at Atlanta's High Museum of Art.

Zoom out: Black Men Smile is part of a network of initiatives that aim to change public perceptions of Black men by promoting positive narratives, similar to My Brother's Keeper Alliance and Brotherhood Crusade.

• Efforts like Black Men Smile seek to dismantle stereotypes that portray Black men as aggressive, emotionally detached, or hyper-masculine.

Flashback: Mackey began his smile ministry about a month after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed on Aug. 9, 2014, in a Ferguson, Missouri police shooting.

• Mackey recalls feeling paralyzed by a mix of emotions—confusion, fear, anger, and self-doubt—when images of Brown's body lying in the street began circulating.
• "Michael Brown's death was a breaking point for me," Mackey said. "It made me question everything — how to prepare my son, how to protect myself, and how to keep going in a world that sees us as targets."
• "It f--ked me up," he says plainly.

Between the lines: Social media was still evolving in 2014, and a succession of killings spurred racial justice campaigns that started with hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName later that year.

Mackey knew he had to channel his pain into something productive.

• "When I typed 'Black men' into Google, the results were predictable: athletes, rappers, hypersexualized images," he recalls. "It was either aggression or strength — but never joy, softness, or complexity."
• While researching "Black Men Smile," he noticed zero results on Instagram and name availability on top social media platforms, which Mackey saw as motivation and opportunity.

Mackey's first post was a picture he took as a wedding photographer, showing his close friends dressed in tuxedos, smiling. He captioned it with the hashtag #BlackMenSmile, marking the beginning of his initiative.

• In 2018, comedian Felonious Munk became a viral sensation when he posted images of himself smiling, simply because he couldn't find any.
• Munk encouraged Black men to share smiling photos on Twitter using #BlackMenSmiling and immediately knew, "This will be a viral moment."
• This version of the hashtag became the top trending topic on Twitter, ultimately catching the attention of CNN. Mackey later collaborated with Munk to unify their messaging under #BlackMenSmile.

• "We don't talk about Black man joy," Munk tells Axios. "It's as if, once you grow out of boyhood you're not allowed to be joyful anymore."

The big picture: Mackey's work has continued to evolve, resonating so widely that Target reached out to him and featured his 'Black Joy is Revolutionary' messaging in their 2023 Black History Month collection.

In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, Mackey co-created the Arts & Social Justice Fellowship Program at Emory, bringing Black artists into classrooms to explore how racism shapes various academic fields.

• Now in its fifth year, the program has become a national model for using art for healing and social change.
• Artists like Fahamu Pecou and Shanequa Gay worked alongside scientists and scholars to create art that challenges how racism has shaped our fields of study.
• "We explored how trauma is literally written into our DNA, and how art can help rewire that," Mackey said.

Context: Dr. Ed Garnes, a therapist in Atlanta and the founder of the From Afros to Shelltoes community organization, believes Mackey's movement and its recent message of "Black Joy is Revolutionary" are powerful tools for resistance.

• "When was the last time a system affirmed Black men?" Garnes asked.
• Munk emphasized the importance of vulnerability. "We need to figure out that we don't have to be hard," he said.

The bottom line: Mackey added that this movement "is not just about smiling."

• "Our joy is a form of protest," he said, "and that's what makes it revolutionary."