Quotes from DeRay Mckesson

Bowdoin was the first place that I fell in love with. When I visited, I just had never been to a place with that many resources and that much access to information. That was stuff that you saw in movies. I didn't know that existed in real life.

I think that I, because of student government and because of working in Baltimore, knew how to be creative with very little resources.

I love Baltimore. This city has made me the man that I am.

I am not naive enough to believe that voting is the only way to bring about transformational change, just as I know that protest alone is not the sole solution to the challenges we face.

We question these issues of race and struggle and white privilege because we know that those issues are real and because those issues have real implications in black communities. And white supremacy is not only dangerous, but it is deadly.

I've never been a surrogate for Bernie, Hillary, or the DNC.

The police, at their best, do three things; they prevent crime, they respond to crime, and they solve crime. In all three of those buckets, they need the trust of the community to do it, so I believe that if we restore the trust that we will change the way police are experiencing communities and ways that will preserve life and make everyone safer.

I think Twitter is an incredible platform. I want to see it succeed.

I'm a black, gay man, and I should be able to live in a world where I'm able to live in the complexity of my identity in a way that is safe and secure, like everyone else.

Politics is compromise, by its very nature. But we never compromise on our values and beliefs.

What we know to be true is that comfort isn't always freedom. People confuse the two.

Systemic change rarely comes overnight.

I'm not a politician. I'm somebody who knows the world can be better, and I'm willing to fight for it.

Baltimore is a city of possibility, and we've got to challenge the traditional pathways of politics and politicians who lay those paths.

Find an issue that's important to you, and be as curious and close to it as possible.

It is not a new tactic for people to use any avenue they can to silence black activists.

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.

Justice that is not rooted in equity, in social welfare, and in community is not justice at all.

I think about freedom as not only as the absence of oppression but also the presence of justice and joy.

I will never forget the first time I was teargassed or the night I hid under my steering wheel as the SWAT vehicle drove down a residential street. I will never forget that it was illegal - in St Louis, in the fall of 2014 - to stand still.

I am often asked what it is like to be on the 'front line.' But I do not use the term 'front line' to describe us, the protesters. Because everywhere in America, wherever we are, our blackness puts us in close proximity to police violence.

Twitter is half me trying to live in the world and half me processing and sharing the world. I share a lot, and some of that is to keep me honest.

Expressing and loving myself is often so much more complex than 'out' affords me.

I just couldn't believe that the police would fire tear gas into what had been a peaceful protest. I was running around, face burning, and nothing I saw looked like America to me.