Rev. DeWayne Davis announced on Oct. 17 that he will be running for Minneapolis Mayor in 2025, making him the first candidate to announce his campaign.
Davis, who moved to Minneapolis in 2013 with his husband, said before becoming a pastor at All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church and Plymouth Congregational Church, he was a Congressional legislative assistant for 15 years. Davis said these experiences in public service motivated him to run for mayor.
Incumbent Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has not announced plans to seek a third term, as he told Axios reporter Kyle Stokes that he is “not making any announcement right now” on if he will run again.
Minnesota Daily: What made you want to run for Minneapolis mayor?
Davis: “I think I’ve been marching toward this. I didn’t think that this was in view, but sort of being right there on the ground, meeting people, and then this is the key — we can, again, we can be highlighted by the idea of public service we can talk about, it’s theoretically or academically, but these are actual people with actual bodies. Then when George Floyd was killed, and every which way I could, I said, ‘I wanted to be a part of trying to really begin to see how it is that not only we got to this place, where we would be ground zero for the killing of unarmed black people, and ground zero for an uprising, ground zero of a real indictment of a failure to deal with the issues that got us here.’ I just offered my service, and as I got even deeper, the one thing I came to the conclusion was we had lost sight of the real human toll of not dealing with our issues. The second thing is that I think it’s time to turn the page. The cynicism of politics, the pitting of one group against the other — too many elected officials, too many people, that’s their go-to. And I said, let’s bring everybody into the conversation. Every part of the city, especially my part of the city, where I have heard directly from people.”
Daily: What recent experience do you have that you believe will make you a good candidate for mayor?
Davis: “The first thing would be my ministry. My ministry, both at All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church in south Minneapolis, which is a church that has a ministry primarily for LGBTQ+ people, located near Lake Street in that area where we are surrounded by human need. Then my ministry with Plymouth Congregational Church, which has a large food shelf and a mental health drop-in center. Those meet experiences, again, where in our ministry we are touching people at their most vulnerable. We are touching people with desperate human needs. But here’s the thing that I think has gotten lost — this is not just the city government or state government, but I think it’s government writ large. Because the government and our elected officials I think have not made the case for how a constructive relationship between government and people could work to provide what they need… As a minister, when that need comes to me, there’s only so much that we can do as churches. We go far, but we do everything we can to meet people who are hungry, people who are having mental health challenges, and all that’s true is all about people in recovery. But at some point, we need partnership from the government. And so sometimes I think ‘Oh the churches will feed, oh the churches will do it.’ Yes, we’re going to do it. But we keep seeing that need get deeper and bigger. And so the experience I had was, OK, I’ve marshaled all the resources I can in this church. I’ve convinced all the members. I preach, ‘You’ve got to help. You’ve got to help.’ And people are helping. People are volunteers. OK, now we’ve got to go to a much larger level. I think that is what I could even sort of make sense of that I needed to go a little bit further in what I was doing.”
“The second experience was in the aftermath of George Floyd. And this is a part of the deep disappointment. Now, you don’t want to react to your deep disappointment, but look, we were ground zero for the worst thing that people could visibly see. We don’t see it, but we are horrified by the news. But we were visible. But what did not happen, and what I wanted to see was I wanted a coordinated effort, especially by our city leadership, to bring us all together, not blend on fear or defensiveness. But bring everybody up and say, ‘Look, there’s a reason we got here.’ The reason is important because we are always quick. ‘Minneapolis is the most livable city. It’s the most walkable city. Oh, it’s a great city. It’s the greatest city. It’s the happiest.’ I think what was really convincing to me here is we did not, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, we did not bring everybody together. We did not have a coordinated policy response that would say to the world, ‘Look what we went through and look how we responded.’ As a matter of fact, there were no ideas, different levels of government had to sort of step in. Again, no coordination, no sitting down. ‘Let’s figure this out.’ I was very frustrated about that. That experience, I think, also put a fire under me.”
Daily: Most of your experience is in religious work, how will religion affect your policy-making, if at all?
Davis: “I make a distinction between religion and my faith. Religion is an institution. And institutions have to protect themselves. The behavior you see in organized religion or in the church is often institutional behavior. ‘What do I need to do to maintain the institution?’ I have no interest in maintaining the institution. I’m driven by my faith. What that means is I’m driven by the values and commitments that I discern from Jesus. Those commitments are the liberation of others. It is the doing of justice in the context of empire. I am not interested in forecasting any religious commitments. I’m not interested. I’m not carrying water for a denomination or religion. I’m not carrying the water for Christianity. I don’t think I need to do that. I’m also not an apologist for Christianity. I’m a Black man, a descendant of slaves, Christianity played a definite role in enslavement.”
Daily: What are the main issues you like to address as Mayor?
Davis: “I want us to keep in mind is, and this touches on two things, one, a city that is known for its economic growth and its livability. One of the things we have to remember, the externality or the outcome of that growth, is increasing poverty and inequality. It just happens. You go anywhere. Anytime you’re going to have economic growth, you’re going to have poverty and inequality. What has been going on is we are so interested in getting that economic growth. Nationally, statewide, locally, we want that growth. We want people to have good jobs. And so we’re so focused on that. We forget that the more growth we’re going to get, we’re going to miss somebody. And we’re going to leave somebody behind. We’re going to do what a city does. We’re going to try to attract business. We’re going to try to attract innovation. But we should also be very intentional about mitigating poverty or the unintended consequence that someone gets left behind. And then invest in that.”
Daily: What do you expect to be one of the main challenges for you during your mayoral campaign?
Davis: “There are a couple of challenges. One, I have to earn people’s votes. People want to get to know me. And I know there are some pros and cons with having the ‘Reverend’ around your name. And so I’m very interested in that. Also, look, I am a Black gay man. I know that carries with it a whole series of assumptions, stereotypes and biases. I’m aware of it. So people certainly get to judge me. This is the way it works, they can judge me about it. The challenge is getting my story out there and letting people know. Another challenge is that I don’t have an existing political organization. We are building it as we go. That means that there are others, anybody, many others who might want to jump in or really jump in. Already got what they got and they know what they’re doing. What they can do with what they have. I’m in the middle of learning and putting it together. I’m surrounded by great people, great volunteers. And it’s encouraging.”
Daily: Why do you believe Mayor Frey shouldn’t have a third term?
Davis: “I have worked very closely with the Mayor and we’ve worked very well together and I always appreciate his willingness to hear me out and I can say he has always been willing to hear my advice or my complaints. But I just simply think it’s time to turn the page. I think we have an opportunity to recast, rethink, reimagine Minneapolis for a different era. It’s time to turn the page on a real sort of city politics that in many ways either thrived on the conflict or politics or campaigning as sort of like the status quo and really get back to a period where our city includes the council. We were all always in conversation, always trying to figure out the way. Look, we couldn’t disagree. We’re intelligent people with different ideas. That’s not the problem of a democratic order that people disagree. The problem becomes when we turn people into permanent enemies because they disagree.”
This interview has been edited for clarity, grammar and length.