DeRay McKesson Tells Young Activists What It Takes to Run for Office

VICE Impact recently sat down with Mckesson to talk about the ways young people can engage with their government, and whether in 2017 a candidate still needs experience to run.

VICE Impact: We're in this new age where people with zero political experience are accepted as qualified enough to serve. Do you think there's more value in young activists running for local elections or in trying to fix a broken system from the outside?

DeRay Mckesson: We have to be as organized on the inside as we are on the outside. So we'll always need people pushing on the outside to make it better, and we need people who already believe what we believe on the inside.

There's this idea that the people at the table are all experts and everything, and their staffs are normally smart but a lot of the political leaders aren't the most incredible people you've ever met. I say that to say there's an opportunity for young people to really step up and to come in with an ideology that is focused on equity in a way that we've not seen before. And also understanding what they don't know, and being really proactive about learning and getting it.

How do you see this varying by region or aspects of the candidate's identity like race ? Running for office in, say, Baltimore is going to be different from running in the Pacific Northwest.

What is constant across the country is money. So the influence of money is big. I think about when I ran for mayor, that's all expensive and money is a barrier for so many people. But the internet will flatten that out over time…

Because people can campaign more across social media?

You know we raised more money than Bernie Sanders did on Twitter, right? That wasn't an option for people ten years ago. I didn't need millionaires to open up a PAC for me because I could get donations from people in every state where people could give 10 dollars or one dollar. That model is just different.

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Any advice for young activists considering a run for office?
There are a lot of positions that you see often, like city council or mayor, or clerk of the court. The sheriff. All these things that have a huge impact on the way the city or a state works that you just didn't know about. And I think for people who don't have a lot of experience in government, those can be an incredible way to step in and to understand, and then go run for something else later.

Have to ask – any plans to run again yourself?

Maybe. I think we need to be as organized on the inside as outside. I learned a lot running this time and I'm excited to support other people who are running across the country.

Anyone in particular?

Randall Woodfin, he just won to be the next mayor of Birmingham. He's young. I had him on the podcast, anything I could do to help him.

Nikkita Oliver, she was running for mayor in Seattle and I had her on the podcast to support her campaign. There are some incredible young people who are running and I'm down to do whatever I can to help them.

What are the crucial things people still don't understand about engaging with local government?

One of the things that systems and structures do is they convince you that you don't have power when you do. And it's important that activists continue to go to school board meetings and the Board of Estimates, all of those things that seemingly don't matter. Because what you find -- and I say this as somebody who used to be a government official in Baltimore -- is that the people that show up to them actually have a disproportionate amount of influence and power, because they're the only people who testify or get heard.

So calling your state senator's office, emailing, mailing, all of that actually does matter. Even if nobody's telling you it matters, if you're not getting a feedback loop, it's huge. Definitely at the national level but also at the local ones. You'd be surprised how few state senators or state delegates ever get any phone calls about anything, so when 100 people call about an issue it's actually a pretty big deal.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.