Janey replaces fellow Democrat Marty Walsh, who resigned Monday to become President Joe Biden’s labor secretary. She was the City Council president and will serve as acting mayor until a mayoral election in the fall.
Janey, 55, promised to bring urgency to the job. She said her administration will be open to those who have felt disconnected from the city’s power structure.
“Today is a new day. I stand before you as the first woman and the first Black mayor of Boston, the city that I love,” Janey said during the City Hall event. “I come to this day with life experience that is different from the men who came before me.”
In the audience sat four generations of Janey’s family, including her mother, Phyllis. Under Janey’s hand was the family Bible, once owned by her maternal grandfather, a Baptist preacher.
“This is a proud day for the city of Boston and all Bostonians,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, the first Black woman to represent the state in the U.S. House of Representatives and Bostonians on the City Council, said while introducing Janey. “But I know this has a special meaning for those who dared to dream a different future for our city across the generations. Today, that seemingly improbable dream is a reality.”
Inheriting a city facing the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and longstanding racial and economic disparities, Janey, 55, vowed to deliver “bold, courageous leadership,” beginning with “an unrelenting focus” on the once-in-a-century health crisis.
She pledged to work to make more testing and vaccines available, particularly in communities hardest hit by the virus.
Janey also promised to address food, housing and public transportation insecurity and work to close the city’s wealth gap in part by ensuring that minority-owned businesses have a fairer shot at city contracts. She also pledged to work to ensure that police in the city serve all residents fairly.
“Over the past year, the same communities hardest hit by the public health crisis have experienced the highest rate of housing and food insecurity,” Janey said. “I will address these economic disparities with new urgency to reopen Boston’s economy with equity.”
Justice Kimberly Budd, who administered the oath, was named chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2020, the first Black woman to lead the state’s highest court.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who presided over the ceremony, was the first Black woman both to serve on the City Council and to be elected to Congress from Massachusetts.
Pressley described Janey as “a proud fourth-generation daughter of Roxbury,” the heart of the city’s Black community.
“She will lead with clear eyes, a full heart, and a steady hand,” Pressley said. “She will make a profound difference.”
During the event, Janey basked in the pride of her loved ones while promising to bring an urgency to her new job. As acting mayor she’ll face a number of challenges, some that existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic and some that have cropped up in the last year.
