Black Lives Matter Activist Announces Bid for Baltimore Mayor

Prominent Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay Mckesson will join the race for Mayor of Baltimore, he announced on Wednesday.

Mckesson, 30, stepped into the already-crowded mayoral contest just minutes before the filing deadline, the Baltimore Sun reports. He announced his run as a Democrat in a statement on Medium.

“It is true that I am a non-traditional candidate ,” Mckesson wrote. “I am an activist, organizer, former teacher and district administrator that intimately understands how interwoven our challenges and our solutions are. I am a son of Baltimore.”

The Democratic primary election will include 13 candidates and take place on April 26. The winner has usually won Baltimore’s general election.

Mckesson has grown to national prominence over the past year and a half due to his activism with the Black Lives Matter movement and his commentary, largely over Twitter, about issues like police misconduct.

“I have come to realize that the traditional pathway to politics, and the traditional politicians who follow these well-worn paths, will not lead us to the transformational change our city needs,” Mckesson wrote.