Black Lives Matter Activist Is Free

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson was released from jail Sunday after spending a night in lockup following his arrest in Baton Rouge while protesting the shooting death of a black man by police, reports AP. McKesson, 31, was arrested Saturday night while at a protest for Alton Sterling. "The only people that were violent last night were the Baton Rouge Police Department," he said upon his release, per this video from ABC News. Mckesson and others were taken into custody while walking along the side of the Airline Highway and charged with "simple obstruction of highway commerce," reports NBC News.

Mckesson is one of the most recognizable faces to emerge from the Black Lives Matter movement—a former educator who built a national following after leaving his then-home and job in Minneapolis in August 2014 for Ferguson, Missouri, to document the rising anger over race relations after an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by a white police officer. He now lives in Baltimore, where he grew up, and he waged an unsuccessful campaign for mayor this spring. (More Black Lives Matter stories.)