DeRay Mckesson Quotes

DeRay Mckesson

Profession : Activist

Birth : July 9, 1985

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

DeRay Mckesson

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

DeRay Mckesson

Social media allowed us to become our own storytellers. With it, we seized the power of our truth.

DeRay Mckesson

There is nothing romantic about teargas. Or smoke bombs or rubber bullets or sound cannons.

DeRay Mckesson

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.

DeRay Mckesson

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.

DeRay Mckesson

I'm not convinced that stealing an iPhone is a felony or stealing a bike is a felony.

DeRay Mckesson

Baltimore is a beautiful city. I started doing a lot of community organizing back in 1999 and met so many great people in neighborhoods all across the city. And that was an invaluable experience.

DeRay Mckesson

I think people who are not from here think the Inner Harbor is the only center for culture or fun in the city, and there's so much more to Baltimore. The Harbor's a beautiful place, but there are so many gems embedded in other communities that don't get as much visibility.

DeRay Mckesson

I was a teacher. I also worked at Harlem Children's Zone. I moved back to Baltimore and opened up an after-school, out-of-school program on the west side and then worked in two public school districts, in Baltimore and Minneapolis.

DeRay Mckesson

Skills acquisition is really at the heart of what it means to learn.

DeRay Mckesson

Some people are more interested in fighting than winning.

DeRay Mckesson

As a protester, I protested because I had to, not because it was exciting. I don't want to get tear-gassed again.

DeRay Mckesson

When I think about protest, I worry so much that people think about it only as standing in the streets. And I say that as someone who has been standing in the streets of cities across the country - but at the root of it is this idea of telling the truth in public.

DeRay Mckesson

The history of blackness is also a history of erasure.

DeRay Mckesson

Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional.

DeRay Mckesson

You are enough to start a movement. Individual people can come together around things that they know are unjust. And they can spark change.

DeRay Mckesson

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.

DeRay Mckesson

I think people are uncomfortable talking about the racist history of this country and what we need to do to undo the impact of racism.

DeRay Mckesson

People like to act like we don't have a legacy of racism here. I think people get really uncomfortable with it. We know that we can't change it unless we address that.

DeRay Mckesson