On February 3, 2016, Mckesson announced his candidacy in the 2016 Baltimore mayoral election. He finished with 3,445 votes (2.6%), placing sixth in the Democratic Party primary on April 26.[8]
Mckesson is the author of On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope, a memoir about his life and time as a Black Lives Matter organizer.[9]
Early life, education, and career
Mckesson was an organizer in Baltimore City as a teenager, notably as the Chairman of Youth As Resources, Baltimore's youth-led grant-making organization.[10] He graduated from Catonsville High School in 2003. He then went on to Bowdoin College, where he was president of the student government. Mckesson graduated in 2007 with a degree in government and legal studies.[11]
After graduation, Mckesson began his education career by working for Teach for America for two years in a New York City elementary school.[11] He later worked as special assistant in the office of human capital with the Baltimore City Public Schools, for the Harlem's Children's Zone, and as a human resources official at Minneapolis Public Schools.[12][13] In June 2016, he was appointed Baltimore City Schools' interim chief human capital officer by district CEO Sonja Santelises.[14]
He has been criticized by some public education advocates for his involvement in Teach for America and for his support for charter schools.[15][16]
Activism and politics
Mckesson first drove from Minneapolis to Ferguson on August 16, 2014.[17][18] He began spending all his weekends and vacations in St. Louis.[19] On March 4, 2015, Mckesson announced via Twitter that he had quit his job at Minneapolis Public Schools and had moved to St. Louis.[20]
In April 2015, Mckesson and fellow activists Johnetta Elzie, Samuel Sinyangwe, and Brittany Packnett launched "Mapping Police Violence", which collected data on people killed by police during 2014.[21] In August 2015, the same group launched Campaign Zero, a ten-point policy plan for police reform. Key points included the decriminalization of trespassing, marijuana possession, loitering, public disturbance, and consuming alcohol in public as these crimes do not threaten public safety, but are often used to target African Americans.[6] Mckesson and Elzie were awarded the Howard Zinn Freedom to Write Award in 2015 for their activism.[22]
Mckesson in 2019
In June 2015, Mckesson was the focus of a Twitter campaign while he was in Charleston, South Carolina to protest the Charleston church shooting.[23] The campaign featured the hashtag "#GoHomeDeray", which was accompanied by statements demanding that Mckesson leave the city.[23][24] Mckesson responded to the hashtag, stating that he was there as a sign of solidarity for the nine deaths and that the hashtag was proof that "[r]acism is alive and well in places like South Carolina, and in towns across America."[25]
In late 2015, he was a guest lecturer at Yale Divinity School.[26] In November of the same year, Mckesson spoke at the GLAAD Gala, where he discussed his life as a gay man and asked LGBT people to "come out of the quiet."[27][28]
In February 2016, Mckesson announced his candidacy for Mayor of Baltimore just before the filing deadline.[8] He placed 6th in the city's Democratic primary in April, with 2.5% of the vote.[29] In June 2016, he was named as interim chief human capital officer of the Baltimore City Public School System.[1]
On July 9, 2016, in the aftermath of the shooting of Alton Sterling, Mckesson took part in a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While live streaming, he was arrested.[30] He was released the next day after being charged with obstruction of a roadway, and charges were later dropped.[31][32] On July 13, he and other Black Lives Matter activists, along with police officials, politicians, and other activists, met with President Obama at the White House to discuss relations between black communities and law enforcement officials.[33][34][35]
In July 2017, Mckesson, Black Lives Matter, and other BLM leaders were sued by a Baton Rouge policeman who sustained life-altering injuries in an ambush attack, claiming that Black Lives Matter "incited the violence against police in retaliation for the death (sic) of black men shot by police".[40] The suit was dismissed in October 2017; U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's ruling would be upheld in August 2018 by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in an unpublished (that is, not precedential) opinion.[41]
Mckesson and Black Lives Matter were also sued by another Baton Rouge police officer who was injured by a thrown rock during a protest on July 9, 2016, when Mckesson had been present. Jackson also dismissed that case in September 2017, ruling that the officer "utterly failed to state a plausible claim" and instead launched a "confused attack" against Black Lives Matter and others.[42][43] On the same day U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles approved a settlement awarding up to $1,000 to protesters, including Mckesson, who claim police used excessive force in arresting them.[43]
However on April 24, 2019 the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Jackson's ruling against the officer injured by the rock, allowing that suit to go forward. The ruling stated that: "Given the intentional lawlessness of this aspect of the demonstration, Mckesson should have known that leading the demonstrators onto a busy highway was most nearly certain to provoke a confrontation between police and the mass of demonstrators, and not withstanding, did so anyway. By ignoring the foreseeable risk of violence that his actions created, Mckesson failed to exercise reasonable care in conducting his demonstration."[44] The Supreme Court, in a per curiam order, vacated the Fifth Circuit's decision on November 2, 2020, ruling that the Fifth Circuit failed to review Louisiana state law prior to determining the constitutional aspects, and remanded the case back to the Fifth Circuit for review.[45]
"Hands up, don't shoot", sometimes shortened to "hands up", is a slogan and gesture that originated after the August 9, 2014, police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and then adopted at protests against police brutality elsewhere in the United States. The slogan implies one has their hands in the air, a common sign of submission, and is therefore not a threat to an approaching police officer. Witness reports from the Brown shooting are conflicted as to what Brown was doing with his hands when he was shot. One witness claimed Brown had his hands in the air before being killed, which was the basis for the slogan.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people, and promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. It started following the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. The movement and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes considered to be related to black liberation. While there are specific organizations that label themselves simply as "Black Lives Matter", such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the overall movement is a decentralized network of people and organizations with no formal hierarchy. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself remains untrademarked by any group. Despite being characterized by some as a violent movement, the overwhelming majority of its public demonstrations have been peaceful.
Johnetta "Netta" Elzie is an American civil rights activist. She is one of the leaders in the activist group We The Protesters and co-edits the Ferguson protest newsletter This Is the Movement with fellow activist DeRay Mckesson.
The 2016 Baltimore mayoral election was held November 8, 2016 concurrent with the General Election. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the incumbent mayor, did not run for reelection. Catherine Pugh won the election on November 8, 2016, with 57% of the popular vote, and took office on December 6, 2016.
#SayHerName is a social movement that seeks to raise awareness for Black women victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States. The movement's name was created by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). #SayHerName aims to highlight the gender-specific ways in which Black women are disproportionately affected by fatal acts of racial injustice. In an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in December 2014.
Campaign Zero is an American police reform campaign launched on August 21, 2015. The plan consists of ten proposals, all of which are aimed at reducing police violence. The campaign's planning team includes Brittany Packnett, Samuel Sinyangwe, DeRay Mckesson, and Johnetta Elzie. The activists who produced the proposals did so in response to critics who asked them to make specific policy proposals. Subsequent critics of Campaign Zero and of their 8 Can't Wait project point out that some of the policies it recommends are already in place as best practice policies at many police departments. Some of these include the Milwaukee policing survey and the PRIDE act. However, a 2016 study by Campaign Zero found that only three of the eight policy recommendations were adopted by the average police department and that no law enforcement agency had adopted all eight.
Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) is an African American youth organization in the United States. Its activities include community organizing, voter mobilization, and other social justice campaigns focused on black, feminist, and queer issues. The national director is D'Atra "Dee Dee" Jackson.
Samuel Sinyangwe is an American policy analyst and racial justice activist. Sinyangwe is a member of the Movement for Black Lives, the founder of Mapping Police Violence, a database of police killings in the United States and the Police Scorecard, a website with data on police use of force and accountability metrics on US police and sheriff's departments. Sinyangwe is also a co-founder of We the Protestors, a group of digital tools that include Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence and a co-host of the Pod Save the People podcast, where he discusses the week's news with a panel of other activists.
On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by two Baton Rouge Police Department officers, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The officers, who were attempting to control Sterling's arms, shot Sterling to death, which was preceded by Salamoni threatening Sterling with his gun before Sterling was restrained, yelling that he would "shoot [Sterling] in the fucking head" if he moved. Police alleged that Sterling had reached for the loaded handgun in his pants pocket. Police were responding to a report that Sterling was selling CDs and that he had used a gun to threaten a man outside a convenience store. The owner of the store where the shooting occurred said that Sterling was "not the one causing trouble" during the situation that led to the police being called. The shooting was recorded by multiple bystanders.
On July 17, 2016, Gavin Eugene Long shot six police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in an ambush attack, in the wake of the shooting of Alton Sterling. Four died, including one who was critically wounded and died from complications in 2022, and two others were hospitalized; of the officers who initially died, two were members of the Baton Rouge Police Department, while the third worked for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office. Long, who associated himself with organizations linked to black separatism and the sovereign citizen movement, was shot and killed by a SWAT officer during a shootout with police at the scene.
Darren Seals Jr. was an American racial justice, anti-police brutality, and anti-gun violence activist from Ferguson, Missouri who worked on the assembly line at General Motors. In September 2016, he was found shot dead in a burning car. St. Louis County Police are investigating his death as a homicide; they have not publicly identified suspects or motives.
Brittany N. Packnett Cunningham is an American activist and the co-founder of Campaign Zero. She served as executive director for Teach for America in St. Louis, Missouri, then as a member of President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge is a photograph of Ieshia Evans, a nurse from Pennsylvania, being arrested by police officers dressed in riot gear during a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 9 July 2016. The protest began in the aftermath of the shooting by police of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. The image, taken by Jonathan Bachman for Reuters, became a viral phenomenon on social media, described by several media organizations as "iconic", with some comparing the image to the photograph of "Tank Man" in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The Resistance Manual was a Wiki-style site till 2019 that crowdsourced information and resources. It was created by the activists Samuel Sinyangwe, DeRay McKesson, Johnetta Elzie, Brittany Packnett and law student Aditi Juneja. The manual includes information on policy areas such as immigration, policing, mass incarceration and disability rights, and it tracks Trump's executive orders and various controversies including Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections during the election. In the days since it was launched, the manual had over 400 pieces of content contributed to it from users, and was featured in NBC News, Huffington Post, MSNBC, International Business Times, The Fader and as one of Teen Vogue's "10 Ways to Continue The Fight for Women's Rights".
ZeroFox Holdings, Inc. is an external cybersecurity company based in Baltimore, Maryland. It provides cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) for organizations to expose and disrupt phishing and fraud campaigns, botnet exposures, credential theft, impersonations, data breaches, and physical threats that target brands, domains, people, and assets.
Pod Save the People is an American political podcast produced and distributed by Crooked Media. The show was created, and is hosted by activist DeRay Mckesson with co-hosts Kaya Henderson, De'Ara Balenger and Myles E. Johnson.
Millennial Activists United (MAU) is social justice organization in the U.S., based in Ferguson Missouri. The group works to end racism as well as police brutality in the United States.
The Black Lives Matter movement has been depicted and documented in various artistic forms and mediums including film, song, television, and the visual arts. In some instances this has taken place in the form of protest art. These cultural representations have also grown organically among artists who seek to partake in activist efforts in support or in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement. The themes conveyed in these artistic works address the history of racism and injustice toward people of color in the United States and typically express sentiments of anger and fear as well as solace and hope.
McKesson v. Doe, 592 U.S. 1 (2020), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that temporarily halted a lawsuit by a police officer against an activist associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and instructed the lower federal court to seek clarification of state law from the Louisiana Supreme Court. At issue was whether the activist, DeRay Mckesson, could be liable under Louisiana tort law for injuries caused by other people at a protest. Mckesson had argued that the First Amendment's protection of freedom of assembly should block the lawsuit entirely. The Court's decision to instead redirect the tort law issue to the Louisiana Supreme Court means that the constitutional question was delayed or avoided.
New York City has been the site of many Black Lives Matter protests in response to incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag after the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin, and became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Garner was killed in the Staten Island borough of New York City, leading to protests, demonstrations, and work towards changes in policing and the law. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, the global response included extensive protests in New York City, and several subsequent changes to policy.
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