You recently announced that you'll be running for mayor of Baltimore. What made you want to take on that role? What's the value of working within the system versus working outside it?

"This has to be a city that works for people. It has to be. So much of what we've done in protests is tell the truth in public, knowing that that's a precursor to changing the way the world works. Running for mayor is about having a vision and a plan for what the city can be, and being really intentional about that. It's also about pushing the city to be better than it is, and that's important to me. The city I love, this is home; I was born and raised here, my family is from here. The other candidates are more of the same. It is all establishment, it's different variations of establishment, and that just isn't okay. People deserve a city that works for them, and they deserve people who are willing to tell the truth in public, to do what's right by people.

"Working within or outside a system is not an either-or. It's important that people challenge the government to be the best it can be. That is part of what it means to be a democracy, that is essential. It's also important that people do the things that actually improve people's lives — today, tomorrow, and the day after — and we need to think about how to do both of them.

"You should be able to see a plan and hold me accountable to it. That is real. People should see their lives in your plan. The pieces of my plan you've seen are about safety, the economy, and education, and I think all of them are aggressively innovative, that it's all possible. It pushes all of us in the city to think deep about what we expect and deserve. There's no syllable, there's no easy soundbite that encapsulates the amount of change that the city needs to do right by its people."