Education
Mckesson graduated from Bowdoin College in 2007 with a degree in government and legal studies.
Mckesson graduated from Bowdoin College in 2007 with a degree in government and legal studies.
Mckesson has also participated in discussion and has written for Huffington Post and The Guardian. Along with Johnetta Elzie, Mckesson also launched Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence. On February 3, 2016, Mckesson announced his candidacy to the 2016 Baltimore mayoral election.
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.
He was the president of the student government and his class. Prior to becoming a full-time activist, DeRay was the special assistant in the office of human capital with Baltimore City Public Schools.
Mckesson also worked for the Harlem’s Children’s Zone. He has also worked as the head of the human resources at Minneapolis Public Schools.
He first drove from Minneapolis to Ferguson on August 16, 2014.
He began spending all his weekends and vacations in Saint Louis. On March 4, 2015, Mckesson announced via Twitter that he had quit his job and had moved to Saint Louis. Mckesson and fellow activist Johnetta Elzie launched "Mapping Police Violence", which collected data on people killed by police during 2014.
In late 2015, he was a guest lecturer at Yale Divinity School.
In November of the same year, Mckesson spoke at the GLAAD Gala, where he discussed his life as a gay male and asked LGBT people to "come out of the quiet."
In 2016, Mckesson announced his candidacy for Mayor of Baltimore just before the filing deadline. In June 2015, Mckesson was the focus of a Twitter campaign while he was in Charleston, South Carolina to protest the Charleston church shooting.
The campaign featured the hashtag "#GoHomeDeray", which was accompanied by statements demanding that Mckesson leave the city. 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 "Racism is alive and well in places like South Carolina, and in towns across America."
Mckesson has been criticized for his affiliation with Teach for America, notably by Philadelphia"s Caucus of Working Educators and District of Columbia City Council candidate Drew Franklin.
Mckesson is a member of the Movement for Black Lives and is known for his activism via social media outlets such as Twitter and Instagram and has been active in the protests in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.