Mckesson, DeRay

Impact on the world

A former Teach for America teacher and school administrator, Mckesson quit his job and drove to Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 following the police killing of Michael Brown, building a national following through detailed, continuous social media documentation of the protests that made him one of the most visible figures of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2015, alongside Johnetta Elzie, Samuel Sinyangwe, and Brittany Packnett, he launched Mapping Police Violence to collect data on police killings, followed by Campaign Zero, a ten-point policy platform for police reform; he was invited to the White House to discuss policing with President Obama in 2016 and has since hosted the podcast Pod Save the People and written for HuffPost and The Guardian. A 2018 portrait of Mckesson was added to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, reflecting how central social media documentation of protest had become to a new generation of civil rights organizing.

Life & background

Born July 9, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland, Mckesson graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in government and legal studies, then began his career teaching sixth-grade math in East New York, Brooklyn, through Teach for America, later returning to Baltimore to lead teacher training programs and eventually serving as Chief Human Capital Officer for Baltimore City Public Schools. After his activism grew from Ferguson into a national platform, he ran for Mayor of Baltimore in 2016, finishing sixth in the Democratic primary, and published a memoir, “On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope,” in 2018. He received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bowdoin College, in 2021, and continues organizing, writing, and podcasting on issues of policing, education, and equity.

Sources

1. Campaign Zero; Council on Criminal Justice; EBSCO Research Starters