Perspective: How the Eubie Blake Center saved one 16-year-old

Have you ever visited the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center? I have. Do you know who Eubie Blake was? I didn’t. That is, not until his life story would significantly impact my own. This experience began at age 16, when I was in desperate need of a summer job. In my search for that job, I was directed to apply for work through the Mayor’s Office of Art and Culture, back when there was such an office. t was there that I met a rather stern, yet gregarious, woman named Hattie Harrison. Ms. Harrison was an esteemed member of the Maryland legislature and a Baltimore public school teacher. I remember sitting in her office undergoing an examination of sorts, as if she were trying to determine if I would be a good fit for what was to come.