Carl Frank Stokes is an American politician who represented the 12th district on the Baltimore City Council.

He managed and then owned a retail clothing store before being elected to represent the then-second district on the Baltimore City Council in 1987.

Stokes is a former vice president of Mid-Atlantic Health Care, a medical equipment and supplies company and was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of The Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy, a public charter middle school for boys founded in 2006 and opened in 2007 in East Baltimore.

Of the 15, three were considered coequal front runners: Stokes, City Council president Lawrence Bell and then Councilman Martin O'Malley.

[4] At one point Stokes enjoyed a slight lead in the polls, but O'Malley, the only white candidate of the three front runners, emerged triumphant.