Fairfax County NAACP president Sean Perryman announced an “exploratory” bid for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in a Twitter thread on Monday morning.

Perryman told DCist/WAMU that he’s serious about the run, but won’t officially confirm the decision until he knows he has the broad support of Virginians throughout the commonwealth. “I come from a community advocacy background, so that’s the most important to me,” Perryman said. “That I’ll be able to serve all people to come in.”

Motivated by public service, Perryman served as counsel on the House Oversight Committee while a staffer for the late congressman Elijah Cummings. Perryman later quit his job in private law practice when his firm was hired to represent President Donald Trump in a lawsuit against D.C.-based celebrity chef José Andrés.

Virginia Delegate Hala Ayala, a Democrat representing Prince William County, announced her intention to run for lieutenant governor last week. Hala was part of a wave of Democrats who flipped the House of Delegates in 2017. When asked what separates him from Ayala, Perryman said he doesn’t see it as simply running against another candidate, but rather as an indictment on what he views as a broader failure of leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m running against a system that left people stranded in the midst of a public health crisis,” Perryman said. “Delegate Ayala seems very talented and everything else, but I think I have a lot to add to the race just with my community work and being a voice for people.”

Lieutenant governor is the second-ranking position within the commonwealth’s executive branch, and the first officer in line to succeed the governor of Virginia. The position is open every four years, but unlike the governor, its holder can run for re-election. The current Lt. Gov. of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, announced his plan to run for governor last year, though no formal announcement has been declared. The Washington Post reported that Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman may also join the race, and former Virginia Del. Timothy Hugo is “seriously considering” a run as a Republican candidate according to the outlet.

At 34 years old, Perryman is the youngest person to ever serve as president of the 102-year-old Fairfax County NAACP chapter. He came into the position when former president Kofi Annan resigned last summer after sending angry and offensive text messages to former chapter leader Shirley Ginwright over disagreements on the organizational culture of the group, according to The Washington Post.

According to a press release, Perryman’s top priorities for the position of lieutenant governor would be access to quality education for all Virginians, the elimination of racial disparities, and reforms to ensure the humanity of those within the criminal justice system.

As Fairfax NAACP president, Perryman has been active in issues of racism in Virginia public schools. Perryman led the advocacy effort toward renaming Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, Virginia. The push gained momentum after a student petitioned the school board with a request that she as a Black student not have the name of a confederate general on her diploma. Last week, Fairfax County announced it would rename the school after the late civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis.

Perryman told DCist/WAMU it never should have taken this long in the first place.

“While these changes need to happen, I don’t commend school boards and the town officials that did this at all, because these names were just as racist months ago, years ago, and they were told about it multiple times. So I don’t know it why took the murder of George Floyd to make these changes happen,” Perryman said

The Fairfax NAACP hosted a virtual town hall focused on eliminating racism from schools. Citing a 2018 GAO report that shows interactions between school resource officers and students can lead to criminalization of Black, Latinx, and disabled students, Perryman said it’s best to remove their presence, but not eliminate the positions entirely.

“When we say out of schools, we mean literally out of the building,” said Perryman. “They could be stationed somewhere else as long as they’re not interacting with kids on a day to day basis.”

Perryman noted that Fairfax County still has a memorandum of understanding with the police department to provide cops for the schools despite the announcement to go virtual in the fall. “What will these police officers even be protecting?” Perryman asked.

Perryman said he’s heartened by the support he’s already received within hours of making the announcement, and that while his fundraising outlook seems promising, he’s staying focused on the issues.

“Whoever gets to be a statewide leader coming out of this will be focused on covid recovery, and the issues are going to be ones of education, equity and economics,” Perryman said. “I know how to work with people and I know how to stand up and say when something’s right and when something’s wrong, and that’s what I hope to bring to this position if I choose to run.”