Carlton Turner works as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. Carlton is also founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production. The MCCP uses arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi where he lives with his wife Brandi and three children.

Carlton Turner is also co-founder and co-artistic director, along with his brother Maurice Turner, of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction). M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is a Mississippi-based performing arts group that blends jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry and soul music together with non-traditional storytelling.

Carlton currently serves on the boards of First Peoples Fund, College Unbound, the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, Mondo Bizarro, and Grantmakers in the Arts. Carlton is also a founding partner of the Intercultural Leadership Institute.

Carlton has received awards from the Ford Foundation, Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design in the Arts, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Irondale Ensemble, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Kennedy Center.