Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake (born March 17, 1970) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 50th Mayor of Baltimore from 2010 to 2016, the second woman to hold that office.

[1] Her mother is a retired pediatrician[2] and her father is a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates, where he represented the 40th district, Baltimore City.

She later returned to Baltimore to attend the University of Maryland School of Law, where she earned her Juris Doctor degree in 1995.

[18] In September 2015, Rawlings-Blake announced that she would not seek re-election in the 2016 mayoral election, stating, "It was a very difficult decision, but I knew I needed to spend time focused on the city's future, not my own".

[19] Rawlings-Blake received criticism for her handling of the 2015 Baltimore protests that were prompted by the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015.

[20] After about three hours of violence, looting, and destruction of property throughout the city, Rawlings-Blake requested the assistance of the Maryland National Guard.

[20] Hogan claimed that she did not return his repeated phone calls for two hours after the riots started on April 25 and that he could not enact a state of emergency or deploy the National Guard without a formal request from the mayor.

Rawlings-Blake clarified her remarks in a Facebook post, writing, "I did not instruct police to give space to protesters who were seeking to create violence or destruction of property.

Taken in context, I explained that, in giving peaceful demonstrators room to share their message, unfortunately, those who were seeking to incite violence also had space to operate".

[35] When Rawlings-Blake took office Baltimore City had approximately 16,000 vacant buildings, resulting from a half-century of population decline.

[36] The initiative's strategies include streamlining code enforcement and disposition of City-owned vacant properties, offering incentives targeted at home buyers who purchase previously vacant homes, supporting large-scale redevelopment in deeply distressed areas, and targeting demolition to improve long-term property values.

V2V has also been recognized by the Obama administration, the Clinton Global Initiative, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, ABCD Network, and the Financial Times.

[39] On January 8, 2025, the Old National Bank sued Rawlings-Blake for failing to repay a US$2.1 million 10-year business loan for Gulf Coast Technology Corporation and Buy MBE, which she was the president and manager of, respectively.

Rawlings-Blake was named as a Shirley Chisholm Memorial Award Trailblazer by the National Congress of Black Women, Washington, DC Chapter (2009)[44] and as an Innovator of the Year by the Maryland Daily Record (2010).