DeRay Mckesson, the Black Lives Matter activist, announced he was running for the mayor of Baltimore, jumping into the race and filing paperwork just minutes before the deadline and promising to release his political platforms within a week.
"Baltimore is a city of promise and possibility," he said to the Baltimore Sun. "We can't rely on traditional pathways to politics and the traditional politicians who walk those paths if we want transformational change."
Mckesson joins a crowded field; his candidacy brings to 13 the number of Democrats seeking the party nomination. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the present mayor – and the one who presided over the widely watched violence and chaos in the city as protests surged over the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, after police took him into custody – is not seeking re-election.
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"Too often the elected individuals we put our public trust in disappoint us," he said in a post on Medium. "We have lived through lofty promises and vague plans. We have come to expect little and accept less. When we rely on this traditional model of politics we are rewarded with consistent, disappointing results."
He went on, explaining why he was seeking the office.
"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," he said. "We can build a Baltimore where more and more people want to live and work, and where everyone can thrive."
Mckesson, 30, has previously met with Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders.