In Every Hard Sweetness, Carter-Jones chronicles Civil Rights’ era atrocities through the story of her family’s experience with an all-too-common practice in which Black men were wrongfully incarcerated in institutions for the criminally insane. The result is a stunning work reflecting on race, criminalization, and the devastating consequences of a Black father’s incarceration on his psyche and family, specifically his Black daughter.

Told through a mixture of photography, ekphrasis, and erasure, Carter-Jones’ powerful collection creates an extraordinary record of her family’s life at a time of great suffering and upheaval.