ST. MARY’S CITY, Md.—Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Baltimore’s 49th mayor, will deliver the Commencement address at St. Mary’s College of Maryland on May 12, 2012. She spoke with the Class of 2012 at their 50-days-to-graduation event on March 23 at the reconstructed State House of 1676 in St. Mary’s City.
Sworn in on February 4, 2010, Rawlings-Blake had previously served on Baltimore’s City Council. Elected in 1995 at age 25, she was the youngest person ever elected to City Council. She served as its president beginning November 2007. 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.
Rawlings-Blake was born in Baltimore, the daughter of the late Howard “Pete” Rawlings, former Maryland Delegate, 40th District. She graduated from Western High School in 1988 and in 1992 she earned a B.A. in political science from Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1995, Rawlings-Blake her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. She worked as an attorney in the Legal Aid Bureau and in the Baltimore Office of the Public Defender.
Rawlings-Blake has been honored with numerous awards. Recently the National Congress of Black Women named her a Shirley Chisholm Memorial Award Trailblazer. In 2007 she was selected by The Daily Record as one of “Maryland’s Top 100 Women.” The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs named her one of Baltimore’s “Young Women on the Move.”