DeRay Mckesson

Activist DeRay Mckesson was born on July 9, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland to Joan Adams and Calvin Mckesson. He received his B.A. degree in government and legal studies in 2007 from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

After receiving his B.A. degree, Mckesson was hired by Teach For America as a teacher assigned to Douglass Academy VIII in Brooklyn, New York, where he taught sixth grade math for two years. From 2008 to 2009, he worked as a senior advisor to the program director for the Countee Cullen Community Center of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York before joining the West Baltimore branch of the Higher Achievement after-school program in Baltimore, Maryland as its founding director. Mckesson was then hired as a training resource manager for The New Teacher Project in New York City in 2010, working there for a year before returning to Baltimore as a human capital strategist for Baltimore City Public Schools. In 2013, he was hired as senior director of human capital for Minneapolis Public Schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he remained until 2015 when he left to focus full-time on anti-racist activism in the wake of the police killing of African American teenager Michael Brown. In 2015, he along with Johnetta Elzie, Brittany Packnett and Samuel Sinyangwe launched the “Mapping Police Violence” project as well as Campaign Zero. In 2016, Mckesson was hired as interim chief of human capital for Baltimore City Public Schools and ran for mayor of Baltimore. In 2017, he launched his news and politics podcast Pod Save the People in 2017. In 2020, Mckesson continued his work with his 8 Can’t Wait campaign in response to the murder of George Floyd to curtail police violence in major cities. Mckesson is the author of On the Other Side of Freedom, published in 2018, and has made regular appearances on national media outlets including The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, NPR, MSNBC, and CNN.

Mckesson, who has served on the board of directors for Rock the Vote, has received honorary doctorates from Bowdoin College, The New School, and the Maryland Institute College of Art. Mckesson was featured on the cover of The Advocate , Adweek, and Attitude magazines. He was named to Fortune magazine’s list of the "World’s Greatest Leaders" in 2015 and to Time magazine’s list of "30 Most Influential People on the Internet" in 2016. Mckesson’s portrait, featuring his signature blue Patagonia vest, was added to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2019.

Mckesson lives in New York City, New York.

DeRay Mckesson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 16, 2022.