The Librarian of Congress and the former Mayor were having lunch at Gertrude's

I felt compelled to go to the BMA that particular day. No reason I could name. Just pulled there.

As soon as I came in I saw Carla Hayden. Then Kurt Schmoke. An elderly couple was already asking him for a picture. Hayden—currently in the national news cycle for being recently fired by President Trump—was standing just off to the side.

I went up to her.

I said I knew who she was and wanted to thank her. That I grew up with the Enoch Pratt library and the love for it has now expanded to my kids.

She said thank you. Gracious. Then she gestured toward Mayor Schmoke.

"He was the one who gave me the job."

At that very moment I learned something no archive could teach me—how Baltimore's civic leadership actually works. These people hired each other. Built together. Are still having lunch decades later.

They had just finished eating. Right there at the museum's restaurant. While she was in headlines. While her career was national news. Just two old colleagues.

Once the elderly couple left, I mustered up the courage to speak to the former Mayor. The man who put the city slogan on bus stops: "Baltimore, the City that Reads."

The man who hired the woman who would become the Librarian of Congress.

My late father went to the same prominent school as Kurt Schmoke. Same year. They weren't friends but they were classmates. (The late Congressman Elijah Cummings too)

I grew up hearing that story—my dad went to school with the Mayor. He stayed in Baltimore his whole life. Raised us here. That mattered.

My father knew the Mayor. I know the Mayor. My children, hearing both stories, will watch me build something in the city he once led.

I showed up at my most beloved place in the city that day because I felt compelled. It felt like magic because it was confirmation.

Institutional memory lives in people who show up.

But I'm not just showing up to witness anymore. I'm building Charm Citizen making civic engagement accessible, organizing the people who've been here, and creating the infrastructure that turns everyday residents into civic power.

I've been sitting on this photo since the summer.

The continuity isn't just in the archives or at Gertrude's. It's in the soil of the city. In every generation that stays and builds. Off the shoulders of giants, the work continues.