She has a whistle in her mouth, hornets buzzing around her torso and a mane of brown hair, with a message written above and below her head: “Get ICE out of Charlotte,” the top reads.
“You’ve entered the NEST,” the rest of the message says.
The artist, Makayla Binter, said the image is Queen Charlotte portrayed as one of the many activists around the city, as well as the rest of the U.S., who have been fighting back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I knew that this would affect not only our migrant immigrant community in Charlotte, which is obviously a huge part of our population, but it would ultimately affect Black and brown people too, regardless of their citizenship status,” Binter said. “Simply because of the racial profiling.”
Binter, like other artists, had been looking for an opportunity to channel her resentment toward ICE, Border Patrol and mass deportation in their art. Seeing federal agents arresting random people off of Charlotte streets in November was difficult, Binter said.
And the opportunity to blend her art with her beliefs came when the Carolina Migrant Network, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to people facing deportation, approached Binter about a collaboration. The image was sold to help raise funds for Carolina Migrant Network.
And while the literal message of the image of Queen Charlotte is obvious, there are other messages layered throughout, Binter said. When opportunities present themselves, Binter likes to inject her beliefs and activism into her pieces with creative “Easter eggs,” she said.
Queen Charlotte, the namesake of the city, was the wife of King George III. The county gets its name from the queen’s birthplace in Germany, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Her name was chosen by Charlotte settlers to honor King George III and convince the colonial N.C. General Assembly to build the county’s courthouse, according to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library website.
Queen Charlotte’s skin is brown in Binter’s image, a nod to the real-life debate that Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz may have been a Black woman, Binter said. Her curly hair is unrestrained, as opposed to the slicked-back and up style she’s often portrayed with.
She’s covered in tattoos and piercings, once taboo, that are now more culturally and socially accepted .
She has a third eye on her forehead.
The image in general, Binter said, depicts a mix of modern and historic activism. The hornet’s nest, an iconic symbol of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, is a reference to its American Revolutionary War origins.
“Charlotte was referenced as a ‘hornet’s nest of rebellion’ … and so I wanted it to be almost unfurling around Queen Charlotte,” she said.
Binter said she and other members of the art community started having discussions about how to get involved when ICE began new enforcement this year, and then again later when the U.S. Border Patrol arrived in November. They wanted to find a way to use art to spread information and support protesters.
Binter paying it forward
Binter’s rise was fast and, at times, overwhelming, she said. She moved to the Charlotte area from upstate New York in 2016 to attend Davidson College. Local artists took notice after she did an interactive mural project her senior year of college.
“A bunch of artists in the community … had been following me from there or keeping tabs on my work,” Binter said. “Once I started getting out into the community more, it was just like I was so welcomed and supported.”
After graduating in 2020, she got her first gig painting a mural with the Urban Design Center, she said.
Mentors who would eventually become colleagues helped the momentum keep going, she said, and challenged her to get better at her art and active in the art scene. Since then, her career has taken her all over the Carolinas .
She’s done work for large companies like Urban Outfitters and Novant, local groups, and major political campaigns.
Davita Galloway, an artist and entrepreneur in Charlotte, helped Binter land a job doing digital commissions for former President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. Binter created her own version of Manolo’s Bakery’s “Made in America by Immigrant Hands” slogan, which was sold on T-shirts.
“I’m being surrounded by artists that I looked up to at the time, and obviously, in a way, I still do … but no longer see above me,” Binter said. “More like my colleagues and friends.”
Others in Charlotte using art as activism
Binter is part of a larger art community in Charlotte that blend their mediums with their activism. And for Sydney Duarte, a local artist, art is activism.
“A lot of times, when bad things are happening anywhere in the world, art is usually … what frees you and what helps people with coping skills for any type of trauma,” Duarte said.
A number of murals have cropped up on Charlotte businesses, especially in east Charlotte, Duarte said. The murals carry different messages and imagery, but a similar mission, Duarte said.
It’s also a way for artists to express a “personal rebellion” and take part in community activism.
“Creatives in the community are the ones that are going to speak up, speak the things that other people don’t know how to say, or they want to say, but they don’t know where to begin,” Duarte said.
Often, the art created out of activism is productive and instructional, rather than crass or shocking, Duarte said. Artists will often tell people how to fight ICE rather than telling them to “F- off,” she said.
Cheeks McGee and Katrina Sánchez painted a mural that included a phone number to report ICE sightings and instructed people on how to use whistles to alert their presence. The mural was painted at TAOH Outdoor Gallery near NoDa.
Whistles have become symbolic nationally of anti-ICE political activity. When the Border Patrol started arresting people in Charlotte on Nov. 15, people here made whistles using 3-D printers. Federal police chased and targeted people randomly in public places like stores, shopping center parking lets, a church lawn and a country club and at times aimed their weapons at people or threatened them.
Some people handed out instructions telling people how to use them as signals. It’s another medium of art people have used in their activism, Duarte said.
She and her art partner, Treazy, have painted murals in the community together. One reads “Rise Together,” while another reads “Unity in Community.”
A third mural painted by the duo, on a fence, is more targeted.
“The fire of love melts the fear of ICE,” the message reads. The words surround the word “Love,” written in capital letters that appear to be on fire, with ice melting toward the bottom.
Héctor Vaca Cruz, who works at the anti-poverty organization Action NC as a community organizer, usually has a camera around his neck. Due to the nature of his work, Cruz, who lives in Charlotte, said his activism and art often blend into one another.
“My whole existence is about helping others to speak up for themselves, to be the ones who lead their own campaigns, rather than somebody coming in and advocating for them,” Cruz said. “Everything about my photography has to do with having a voice, being able to speak for yourself, just be able to tell your own story.”
Much of that comes from his own background. Cruz’s father, an immigrant, didn’t feel like he had his own voice and that he didn’t belong in the U.S., he said. After his father’s passing, Cruz dedicated his life — and photography — to making sure that doesn’t happen to other people.
He has created a photography series that he’s posted on his website highlighting how people, especially immigrants, have been impacted by things like the COVID-19 pandemic, or highlighting their community work in Charlotte. And he said he does social justice and documentary photography through his business, Abre La Boca Photo.
Cruz was one of the people following Border Patrol in Charlotte to document them in November. He got many photos of empty parking lots and people protesting or rallying, he said.
“I actually go and try to get stories from the community and interpret what I’m seeing around me,” Cruz said.
While Binter still looks for opportunities to blend her art and activism, she said she’s also trying to help other local artists hungry for their own breakthrough find opportunities.
At Charlotte is Creative, where she works, Binter goes into the community to help new artists find grant opportunities or tries to get them featured in the news.
“It’s also really awesome to know that the knowledge I’ve gained and the insight I have is incredibly useful, not only for creatives who are in my field or medium, but also just in general,” Binter said. “I know that for every gig that I get while working at Charlotte is Creative, that experience is incredibly important for us to then advocate for the artists around us.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
Jeff A. Chamer
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