‘I want to trigger people.’ New museum photo exhibit focuses on social justice protests

Mark Washburn
·5 min read
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When E. Mackey decided to experiment with portrait photography, he settled on an unlikely source of models — homeless people on Miami Beach.

Mackey would respectfully ask whether he could take their pictures and offered $20 or so for their time. It served as the foundation for the street photography expertise that, a decade later, will arrive June 4 in Charlotte at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.

Titled “Choose Your Weapon,” the exhibition focuses on summer protests across the nation in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown. Backed by crowd-sourced donations, Mackey chronicled social justice protests in 11 U.S. cities and turned his work into a photo book, “Lift Every Voice.”

“Choose Your Weapon” was inspired by the philosophy of Black photographer Gordon Parks, best known for his coverage of the civil rights movement for Life magazine. Parks famously said that his choice of weapon was his camera, and with it he was able to spread national awareness of racial issues through his images.

Mackey, 37, challenges visitors to the exhibit to choose their weapon for activism through various themes. Some can use their artistic ability with murals, some can use their bodies in marches, some can be heard through their music.

Mackey even depicts how “white privilege” can be a weapon — something he discovered at a Georgia rally, where he found an unexpected number of whites decrying police violence and spent the day photographing their demonstrations.

E. Mackey traveled to 11 cities in three months to capture images of the protests for racial justice in the summer of 2020.
E. Mackey traveled to 11 cities in three months to capture images of the protests for racial justice in the summer of 2020.

Broad background

Mackey grew up in Florida. With a degree in fashion design from Florida State University, he worked at clubs in Miami’s South Beach organizing shows, managing marketing events and producing videos. He built contacts that soon led to corporate branding gigs.

He worked as an entrepreneur, a rapper and an artist. In 2011, Mackey decided to take up photography. He bought a Canon T3i for about $900, a low-end beginner’s model that took pictures and video.

His clients were hungry for videos to post on the expanding stage of social media. “When it came to photography,” Mackey said, “it was relatively easy to figure out how to make it pay.”

He also had a gnawing desire to tell real stories through his lens, admiring the gritty work of National Geographic photographers and war correspondents.

The video of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery being gunned down by two white men in Brunswick, Ga., spurred E. Mackey to shoot photos and videos of the aftermath. He continued once the George Floyd protests started and online donations began to flow in.
The video of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery being gunned down by two white men in Brunswick, Ga., spurred E. Mackey to shoot photos and videos of the aftermath. He continued once the George Floyd protests started and online donations began to flow in.

“There was something about communicating the real story,” Mackey said. And so he began walking through South Beach and posting portraits of the homeless on Facebook and writing their stories.

By 2014, he was burned out on Miami’s glitzy party scene.

“It was just too shallow,” Mackey said. “I felt like there was more to life than that.”

He moved to New York, scraping by at first, then making corporate connections and eventually opened his own creative agency, Dope Heart Media, providing video, graphic design, photography and other services. Clients have included Toyota, Twitter, Google and Amazon.

Pointing the lens

In May 2020, Mackey was shocked by the video of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, who was gunned down by two white men in Brunswick, Ga.

“I felt like I have to watch people get killed and there’s nothing I can do,” Mackey said. “What could I do? Well, I have my camera. I can shoot from the Black perspective.”

By then, he was living in Atlanta, so he drove to Brunswick.

He began documenting the emotional aftermath of the shooting and posting videos and images online. Days later came the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, and Mackey, with enough money to stay about two days, decided to go. Again, he posted his photos each day, attracting a growing audience.

Online donations began to flow in. At first, $1,500 came in from people to underwrite his expenses and keep him on the job, then thousands of dollars more.

He then went to New York, which was roiling in protests. He decided to stay until donations ran out, but they kept coming in. In all, Mackey went to 11 cities in three months, posting dozens of images daily. News outlets, including Democracy Now, asked to reproduce some of his work.

After spending months photographing protests, E. Mackey produced a book, “Lift Every Voice.”
After spending months photographing protests, E. Mackey produced a book, “Lift Every Voice.”

Meanwhile, he begged forgiveness from his clients for unfinished projects. They encouraged him to keep on his journalistic path. He produced his own book, “Lift Every Voice.”

The Gantt show

Among the elements of the Gantt exhibit is a video Mackey produced illustrating his protest odyssey. It starts with a warning that images may be disturbing, then adds: “This was done intentionally.”

“I want to trigger people, make you cry, make you feel something,” Mackey said. “Maybe this will inspire people to use their gifts to participate.”

In another space, visitors stand between images of police and demonstrators. A fogger and a strobe mimic the tear gas and flash grenades while audio of the hostile confrontation plays.

In E. Mackey’s exhibit at the Harvey B. Gantt Center, “Choose Your Weapon,” visitors wll experience a fogger and a strobe mimicking tear gas and flash grenades.
In E. Mackey’s exhibit at the Harvey B. Gantt Center, “Choose Your Weapon,” visitors wll experience a fogger and a strobe mimicking tear gas and flash grenades.

“It’s like being at a volatile part of the protest,” Mackey said. “I want people to know what that’s like.”

Since its uptown museum opened in 2009, the Gantt has established a track record of programming that sometimes eclipses its larger and better-endowed neighbors like the Mint Museum Uptown and Bechtler Museum of Modern Art.

In 2012, the Gantt attracted Tavis Smiley’s blockbuster “America I Am,” which tracked the Black experience in America beginning with Jamestown. Earlier this year, the Gantt was the national premiere venue for Bank of America’s new corporate collection, “Vision & Spirit: African American Art.”

With “Choose Your Weapon,” the Gantt again shares the contemporary social justice focus pioneered in Charlotte by the Levine Museum of the New South, which has long developed bold, provocative programs confronting uncomfortable truths.

“Choose Your Weapon”

What: An exhibit by E. Mackey of the summer 2020 racial justice protests across America.

When: June 4 - Oct. 3

Where: Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, 551 South Tryon St., Charlotte.

Hours: Open Fridays noon-6 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sundays noon-6 p.m.

Admission: $9 adults.

Details: ganttcenter.org

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

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