Pete Rawlings - Political Leader

Political Leader

In 1999, after Kurt Schmoke, Baltimore's three-term mayor, decided not to seek re-election, Rawlings started a search for Baltimore's next mayor. At first he tried to encouracge NAACP president Kweisi Mfume to run, but Mfume declined. He then threw his support behind Baltimore City Council member Martin O'Malley. It was a risky choice because O'Malley, who is white, was running against two African-American males in a city that was and still is majority African-American, and Rawlings himself was an African-American.