Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay Mckesson Launches Bid For Baltimore Mayor

Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson is putting his money where his mouth is and is officially running for mayor of Baltimore.

The 30-year-old from Baltimore, who first became a leader within the movement on social media during protests in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, presented his last-minute bid on Wednesday, just minutes before the filing deadline.

Mckesson, a Democrat with nearly 300,000 Twitter followers, now joins 28 other candidates including 13 Democrats, four Republicans, three Green Party members and a Libertarian, The Baltimore Sun reports.

In a phone interview with The Washington Post, Mckesson says,

Baltimore is at a moment. I’m running to usher Baltimore into a new era where our government is accountable to its people and aggressively innovative in how it identifies and solves problems.

He adds,

I’ve lived through too many lofty promises and vague plans. We’ve come to rely on a traditional model of politics only to be rewarded with disappointing results.

The general election is November 8.