Senator Barb’s legacy will be memorialized in a permanent exhibition inside Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Central Library once its massive renovation is complete.
The exhibit, set to open in 2019, will have “dozens” of artifacts from Mikulski’s 45-year political career on display, according to a release from Enoch Pratt Free Library. Among them will be the Presidential Medal of Freedom that she was famously given by President Barack Obama last year.
The central library on Cathedral Street can’t open the exhibit just yet, since crews are in the process of digging out its center, adding training, conference, children’s and all-purpose rooms, and upgrading its A/V system, among other changes. Construction is expected to wrap up in spring of 2019.
Mikulski retired from Congress last year and is now a specially appointed professor of public policy and adviser to the president at Johns Hopkins University. She said in a statement that Enoch Pratt was a crucial part of her life coming up in Baltimore.
“I want to give back to an institution that has given so much to me and to our community,” she said. “These historic artifacts are from key moments in my career. I hope they inspire others to learn and to serve.”
Recently appointed Enoch Pratt CEO and president Heidi Daniel said the exhibit “will tell the story of a passionate leader, fierce advocator and champion of human rights who dedicated her life to serving the people Maryland.”
The library is hosting a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Honor with Mikulski next Thursday at 11:30 a.m.
You can also hear Senator Mikulski being interviewed by Heather Mizeur for her first podcast with MizMaryland | Soul Force Politics at http://mizmaryland.org/002-barbara-mikulski/