In a talk before students and faculty at the Harvard Divinity School, Baltimore’s outgoing mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said she was “called” to become the city’s highest elected officer after the forced resignation of ex-mayor Sheila Dixon on corruption charges.

“I sincerely in my heart understand that. . . I was blessed to be able to do what I do, to have a job that I feel totally called to do, and have it be something that makes a difference,” she said during a public talk last Thursday titled “Spiritually Resilient Leadership in the Midst of Adaptive Problems.”

During her nearly seven years as mayor, Rawlings-Blake said she was repeatedly tested, but met those challenges through what she called her leadership role.

Among the challenges she said she inherited from her predecessor was a structural budget deficit, abandoned houses and an obsolete water billing system. On the day after she was sworn-in as mayor, she said she faced a record two-foot snowstorm.

“How Can We Fix It”

The mayor also described to the audience her efforts to reach out to residents who participated in the unrest following the police-custody death of Freddie Gray in 2015.

“Some groups were very frustrated, angry, all amped up, and were either sitting in or protesting. When we approached to try to meet some common ground, we said, we hear you, help us figure out what the issue is; how can we fix it,” she said, adding that “it’s difficult when people are in that space, are frustrated, and they can’t articulate what progress looks like – what justice looks like.”

As Baltimore’s mayor, she said her actions were always aimed at results.

“I refuse to kick the can down the road. I was determined that if there was a difficult decision to be made, it was mine to make, not to pass along to whoever succeeded me.”