DeRay McKesson – a key Black Lives Matter activist – running for mayor of Baltimore

U.S. civil rights activist DeRay McKesson, who was instrumental in the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence, is running for mayor of Baltimore, he announced online late on Wednesday.

McKesson, who rose to prominence out of the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown, has become one of the nation’s best-known civil rights leaders. His distinctive blue Patagonia vest has been seen everywhere from street protests in his native Baltimore to a recent appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“I am running to be the 50th mayor of Baltimore in order to usher our city into an era where the government is accountable to its people and is aggressively innovative in how it identifies and solves its problems,” McKesson, 30, said in a posting on medium.com late Wednesday.

McKesson, who filed his paperwork to enter the race just minutes before the Wednesday deadline, is among more than a dozen Democrats who will face off in an April primary. His rivals include former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and state Senator Catherine Pugh.

Current Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in September that she would not seek re-election when her term ends this year.

Last year the mainly black city of 600,000 people was torn by the worst riots there in a half-century following the death of Freddie Gray of injuries sustained while in police custody.

Coming in a string of controversial police killings across the United States, Gray’s death proved something of a turning point when prosecutors brought charges against 6 officers within weeks.

But the first of those 6 trials, in which Baltimore Police Officer William Porter faced charges including involuntary manslaughter, ended in a hung jury in December.

That put State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s aggressive schedule into disarray, and a judge last month rejected prosecutors’ request to order Porter to testify in the trials of his fellow officers while he awaits retrial.

“I am not the silver bullet for the challenges of our city – no one individual is,” said McKesson – a former teacher. “But together, with the right ideas, the right passion, the right people, we can take this city in a new direction.”

Source: Reuters