Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was sworn in as Baltimore’s 49th mayor on February 4, 2010. In November 2011, she was elected to her first full term as Mayor, receiving 87% percent of the vote in the Mayoral General Election. Mayor Rawlings-Blake has focused her administration on growing Baltimore’s population by 10,000 families over the next decade by improving public safety and public education and by strengthening city neighborhoods.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake serves in leadership positions in the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM). In 2010, she was elected by her fellow mayors to the USCM Board of Trustees. She is also a member of the Mayor’s Water Council, and the Criminal and Social Justice Standing Committee.
Rawlings-Blake served as City Council President from January 2007 to February 2010. She was first elected to the City Council in 1995 at age 25—the youngest person ever elected to the Baltimore City Council. She represented the Council’s 5th District from 1995 to 2004 and the 6th District from 2004 to 2007, serving communities throughout West and Northwest Baltimore.
As Council President, she chaired the City’s Board of Estimates, which conducts formal hearings on City agencies’ operating and capital budget requests and is in charge of awarding contracts and supervising all purchasing by the City government.
From 1998 to 2006, Rawlings-Blake was an attorney with the Baltimore Office of the Public Defender. She is a member of the Federal Bar Association and the Maryland State Bar Association.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Baltimore Convention and Tourism Board; Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel Corporation; Baltimore Museum of Art; National Aquarium in Baltimore; Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, Inc.; Living Classrooms Foundation; Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore; and the Parks and People Foundation.
Rawlings-Blake is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Epsilon Omega Chapter and a former at-large member of the Alliance of Black Women Attorneys.
Rawlings-Blake has been honored with numerous awards. She was selected by The Daily Record as one of "Maryland’s Top 100 Women" in 2007 and 2011. The National Congress of Black Women named her a Shirley Chisholm Memorial Award Trailblazer. The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs named her one of Baltimore’s "Young Women on the Move."
Born on March 17, 1970, Rawlings-Blake is a 1988 graduate of Baltimore’s Western High School, and in 1992 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1995.
Rawlings-Blake is a member of Douglas Memorial Community Church. She lives in Baltimore’s Coldspring neighborhood with her husband Kent Blake and their young daughter Sophia.