Ebony McKinney, advocate for Bay Area artists, social justice
Ebony McKinney, a determined and energetic cultural advocate for artists and social justice, died suddenly July 29 at the age of 41.
Her death was announced by Tom DeCaigny, director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission where Ms. McKinney was employed as a program officer to oversee a portfolio of cultural equity endowment grants. Cause of death was complications related to lupus and pneumonia.
“She has had a huge impact on the arts community, not just in the San Francisco Bay Area but also nationally,” DeCaigny said. “She was a strong champion for individual artists. Ebony could work with anybody.”
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Ms. McKinney graduated from Chatham University and worked as the manager of programming and outreach at Kelly Strayhorn Theater, before moving to San Francisco with her then-husband, Davu Flint, a musician and poet.
She was only in San Francisco for a total of 10 years, on two stints. But in those years, she cofounded two crucial organizations — Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco Bay Area (EAP/SFBA) and Arts for a Better Bay Area (ABBA).
EAP/SFBA, founded in 2008, is a networking group that offers ninemonth fellowships to aspiring arts leaders. “That’s been seen as a national model to help advance emerging artists,” DeCaigny said.
ABBA, founded in 2014, is a coalition of more than 500 arts workers, including composers, curators, administrators, grant makers and artists of all disciplines. In 2015, with Ms. McKinney as a driver, ABBA secured $7 million in increased funding for artists’ grants and community funding.
“Ebony was a force,” said Lex Leifheit, who works in the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and is the other cofounder of ABBA. “Most importantly, she was a coalition builder who used her talents to change the Bay Area arts sector at its core.”
A connector of people, Ms. McKinney first made her mark by starting an informal group called ExperiMentors, which endeavored to build diversity and leadership.
“She was someone who was always learning and improving herself,” Leifheit said. This she proved by uprooting herself from San Francisco and moving to London to earn master’s degrees in both cultural entrepreneurship and visual anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London.
“She was interested in the future of cities and how they could be shaped by the arts,” said Adam Fong, executive director of the Center for New Music and the cofounder of EAP/SFBA.
Upon her return, in 2013, Ms. McKinney plunged right back into the fray. In addition to her work for EAP/SFBA, she and Leifheit formed ABBA to build public goodwill and increased funding for the arts.
“One of Ebony’s signature moments for ABBA was organizing more than 30 people to give public comment at City Hall during the budget hearings in 2015,” Leifheit said. “The strength was in the numbers. That was her genius, building coalitions.”
An informal gathering of friends and colleagues was held Thursday afternoon at SOMArts. More than 100 people came to share stories in the exhibition space currently showing “The Black Woman is God: Divine Revolution.”
“She really believed that art could be a healing force,” said Yesenia Sanchez, who met McKinney when both worked for Intersection for the Arts. “At the heart of everything, she was deeply compassionate and peaceful and wanted to help people.”
Long-divorced, Ms. McKinney lived with roommates in the Mission District and was a regular at Mission Pies and Red Poppy Art House. She practiced meditation and was deeply spiritual, which she expressed through her organizing.
“She was unique in that she was soft-spoken but her words had a lot of impact,” Sanchez said. “She could also be witty and sassy.” Her favorite form of self expression was dance, anywhere that played hip-hop, soul, funk or world music.
“Anything that would move her body,” Sanchez said.
A public memorial is being planned for September. Survivors include her father, Ronald Charles McKinney of Pittsburgh, and brothers Randall Hayes McKinney and Brian Charles McKinney.
Donations may be made in Ms. McKinney’s memory to Red Poppy Art House and Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society.