Keiffer Jackson Mitchell, Jr., was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 28, 1967, into a tradition of public service. His great grandmother, Lillie Jackson, led the NAACP's fight against segregation in Baltimore. His grandfather, Clarence Mitchell, Jr. was a civil rights trailblazer whose sense of social justice strongly influenced several Presidents. Juanita Mitchell, his grandmother, was the first black female attorney in the state of Maryland. An uncle, Parren Mitchell, was the first African-American elected to the U.S. Congress from Maryland.

Keiffer was just three years old when he took part in his first political campaign, handing out flyers for the State Senate bid of another uncle, Clarence Mitchell III. (His mother, Nanette, later told a magazine writer, "We didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't Clarence's district.") At seven, he found himself chatting with President Gerald Ford who had called to ask his grandfather to represent the United States at the U.N. At twelve, while attending Baltimore's Boys' Latin School, he organized a "Kids-for-Carter" campaign. As an undergraduate at Emory University, he volunteered at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta and demonstrated against the Ku Klux Klan in rural Georgia.

After graduating from Emory with a degree in political science, Keiffer went on to the District of Columbia School of Law, receiving his law degree in 1994. Outside of the classroom, he served as a White House intern during the Clinton Administration and as a law clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Jobs with the Maryland Public Defender's Office and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee contributed to what he calls a "tremendous learning experience - how government works and how to make it work better."

In 1995, Keiffer returned to his alma mater, Boys' Latin School, to teach United States, African-American, and Maryland History. That same year, he was elected to the Baltimore City Council, serving as Chairman of the Education and Human Resources Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, assignments that reflected two of his primary concerns--the quality of Baltimore's schools and the safety of its streets.

The lead sponsor of the bill that created the Urban Education Reform Commission, he has spearheaded efforts to replace jurisdictional squabbling over the school system with genuine accountability. To provide students with essential tools, he successfully fought to put $3 million in modern computers into the classroom. He also has sought and continues to seek fiscal responsibility from our school system. When our schools faced a looming fiscal crisis, a local paper dubbed him the "Man with the Plan" for a $42 million loan he organized for our schools - a loan paid back in full.

The impact of crime and drugs on once-proud neighborhoods led Mitchell to take a simple, direct approach. Early one morning, he arrived at one of the city's most notorious drug corners with a card table, a pad of paper and a small placard reading Office of Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell, Jr. He was struck, he says, by "the young people I met, caught up in drug use and trafficking, who desperately wanted to get out but didn't know how." That first day, more than twenty people signed up for drug counseling. Ever since, Mitchell has moved his open-air office to another corner of the city, rain or shine, joined at times by experts in fields such as job training, health care and senior services.

In 2000, Keiffer married Nicole, whom he met as a kid in summer camp, and started a family that now includes Jack, 4, and daughter Kenna, 3.

That same year, Keiffer served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and was appointed Chairman of Baltimore's Human Services Commission. Two years later, he was re-elected to the City Council, named to the Democratic State Central Committee and appointed 2^nd Vice-Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party.

In 2002, Keiffer left Boys' Latin to complete his own financial education with the A.G. Edwards brokerage firm, then with Harbor Bank. After learning the ropes as a teller, he moved up to a key post in marketing and development. A longtime foe of predatory lending, the job helped him appreciate "the challenge of financing new business in under-served areas of the city."

Encouraging business and community development has long been part of Keiffer's agenda. As chairman of the Council's Tax and Finance Committee, he played a key role in structuring the tax package for the redevelopment of the Mondawmin Mall as well as major projects in Charles Village, Locust Point, Harborview and elsewhere. His sponsorship of a "lien release program" has enabled community development organizations to rehabilitate vacant, blighted properties. But he has taken an uncompromising stand against decisions he believed ran "counter to the best interest of the community," from the city's investment in a convention hotel to automatic salary increases for elected officials.

Re-elected in 2004 to his third and current Council term, Keiffer is a member of the Judiciary and Legislative Committee and the Education, Housing, Health and Human Services Committee. In 1999 and in 2005, he was voted Baltimore's: "Best Politician" by the City Paper.

Among his community activities are membership on the Echo Hill Outdoor School Board, the Family Tree Board, the Habitat for Humanity Board, and the Board of Trustees at the Boys' Latin School. A lifelong parishioner at Sharp Street United Methodist Church, he lives in Baltimore's historic Bolton Hill where he serves on the Board of the neighborhood organization, the MRIA.

On January 19, 2007, Keiffer returned to the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Laurens Street, one of the initial sites of his "Take Back the Streets" campaign, to announce his candidacy for the Mayor of Baltimore.

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