DeRay Mckesson had been working in the Minneapolis school system when he heard about the death of Michael Brown. After traveling to Ferguson, Missouri, he became one of the names most closely associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, and helped it gain national prominence.
In February, the 30-year-old Mckesson joined a long line of activists who have pursued political office, announcing that he would run for mayor of Baltimore. Mckesson had done organizing work in the city before going off to attend Bowdoin College and entered the race with the idea that he could bridge the gap between activist groups and the city government, and help Baltimore transcend issues such as crime, poverty, and racism.
But the race for mayor has not gone as planned. The election is today, and Mckesson has found himself unable to rise in the polls beyond single digits. His late entry into the field left him struggling to capitalize on his national platform and social media presence; he was outspent by several other candidates, and remained unknown to too many voters. (Much of the money he did raise came from celebrities and the tech world.)
I talked to Mckesson, who had previously granted numerous interviews and been welcoming of national media attention, last week, as he was on his way to a campaign event. It was not a great conversation. An extremely light edit of the transcript is below.
Isaac Chotiner: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. I appreciate it. You have talked about moving protests into the realm of government. What do you think you have learned about trying to make social change through elections?
DeRay Mckesson: I don’t—I’m not in a place to offer. … The election is not over. So I am not in a place to offer a reflection yet.
OK, well what can you talk about in terms of your experience so far?
The only thing I can say right now is that fundraising is very different. It is one thing to talk about fundraising and another to do it as a candidate, and I have learned so much about how much money it costs to run a campaign, and what it means to raise money.
So how is it different than what you expected?
Yeah, I am really not trying to be difficult, and I am not just doing this with you. I am really not in a reflective place. We’re going to 1,000 doors a day. We are pushing it to the end, and that is where my energy is focused. My focus is not reflecting on a campaign that is not over. Asking people for money is really different than asking people for their support. But that’s really all that I can give you right now.
Are you putting questions off limits? What are you saying here?
No, no, we can totally talk about the campaign. You started with a reflection question, and I am not in a place to reflect, right, because I am in the middle of it. The campaign is still happening, right? And this is not a you thing. I am still in it. I am still running a campaign.
OK, fair enough. What do you make of the media attention you have gotten, while the race itself and the future of Baltimore have gotten less?
I don’t have a comment.
OK. I am sensing a pattern here.
No, it’s not. This is the same thing. A lot of you—I am answering the same questions over and over in general every day, and you are going to write about the race whether I give you an interview of not, right?
This is a Q&A, not an article.
I know. It might be more helpful for us to do a Q&A after the election. There is already so much that has been written. This might be more helpful after the election. The theme in your interview has been about reflecting and the links to the movement, and then about the attention I have gotten. I just don’t have—
Well, tell me about your day then. What do you do? You said you have been knocking on a thousands doors. So you get up, then what? How does it work when you are that close to the end?
It’s interviews in the morning, when people are at work, and events during the day, and then when people get off of work it is door-knocking until the end. We did a mailer yesterday; we have another mailer that is going out. The question is how we get in front of as many people as possible. And we will do that until the last day.
Is there some message you are trying to close with, that you are particularly trying to get out in the last few days.
Vote for me. [Laughs.] Vote for me.
That’s a good message. [Pause.] Hello?
I’m here.
Sorry, go on.
No, no, vote for me, that’s it. That’s, like, the message. The message hasn’t changed. I am a candidate with the most robust platform who knows how to do it at the grassroots level, and platform that is not just about crime and education but about public health, infrastructure, transportation. I know the issues well. Being mayor is about offering a vision for the city, putting the right people in the right place and executing that vision.
What made you decide to run for mayor so early in your political career, rather than something else?
I think that in Baltimore, leading City Hall, being mayor is the position that allows for one to make the concrete changes that will actually make the city better both in terms of having a strategy and aligning resources to maximize impact, and secondly, and importantly, addressing issues of scale and in Baltimore this is a position that allows that to happen.
OK. When I ask you to reflect, I am not saying this is over. I am asking you to reflect on your own lived experience of it—
I am still living it though. That’s the thing. You are going to write this story. People are writing about this race whether I participate or not, right? If I don’t say anything, then you write a piece that is uninformed and not very nice. I think we moved this interview, which is the only reason I am doing it. I am not doing interviews anymore because this does not help me get in front of voters, right? No matter what you write, it is not going to help me get in front of voters and win, given the time frame. This is one of the things we are not doing much of at this point. The question is how we get in front of as many voters as possible. I think we rescheduled you and so forth, and I felt bad.
Maybe we should do it another time. I will go look at the transcript. Why don’t you go campaign and maybe we will talk another time.
Slate is great. This is super not-personal, and I would be super down to do whatever with you when the election is over. We should totally do something. But right now I am focused, about to go to a college and see a student union. That is how I am spending my time these days.
How many hours of the day are you campaigning?
Every hour of the day. The question is, what does it mean to campaign, right? [To third party: I don’t think this is the student union. I think that is the student union.] So this morning I did a lot of local stations. I am talking to you right now. You are the only interview like this today because I canceled. I am not doing this anymore, but we rescheduled you. I am getting off the phone with you, getting out of the car, and then knocking doors and have a forum tonight.
Well, this is interesting because I am sure a lot of politicians feel this way about doing interviews. So I appreciate you being upfront about the frustrations of it.
Yep. It’s nothing personal.
I figured it wasn’t. All right, take care, bye.
Yep, bye.
