By Gazette Staff

      Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took the oath of office for the second time on Monday morning, Jan. 5, before a capacity crowd who witnessed the traditional pomp and ceremony of a mayoral inauguration at Boston Symphony Hall.

      Ron Cobb, the official City Messenger, attired appropriately in a top hat and tails, opened the official proceedings with an introduction of the participants and elected officials.

      City Clerk Alex Geourntas, who served as the Master of Ceremonies, then introduced the Color Guards from the Boston Police, Boston Fire, and Boston EMS, as well as six student-athletes from the Boston public schools who led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. The National Anthem was sung by Baird Lashley, an Emergency Medical Technician with Boston EMS. 

      Several religious members offered Interfaith Prayers. Among those offering the Interfaith Prayers were Father John Unni of St. Cecilia Parish; Bishop William E. Dickerson II, of Greater Love Tabernacle; Pastor Mima Concepcion de Rodriguez of Nueva Vida United Methodist Church; Imam Abdulqadir Farah, Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center; and Rabbi Elaine Zecher, Temple Israel.

      Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, the city’s Poet Laureate, who is the school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, read his original poem, titled Boston Sonnet, that he said was inspired by the origin of the name of the City of Boston in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

      After the showing of a video that highlighted Mayor Wu’s first term, City Clerk Geourntas presented the official Certification of Election of Mayor Wu. Judge Sarah G. Kim, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, then administered the Oath of Office to the mayor, who was accompanied by her husband and three children.

      Geourntas next announced the Certification of Election for the members of the Boston City Council: Councilors-at-Large Ruthzee Louijeune, Julia Mejia. Erin Murphy, and Henry Santana and Ward Councilors Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Edward Flynn, John FitzGerald, Brian Worrell, Enrique Pepén, Benjamin Weber, Rev. Miniard Culpeper, Sharon Durkan, and Liz Brendon.

      Mayor Wu then swore-in the councillors.

      The program concluded with Wu presenting her inaugural address. She noted that Boston Symphony Hall, which was designed by renowned architects and a Harvard professor, is the most acoustically-perfect hall of its kind in America that reflects a “uniquely Boston blend of science and the arts.”

      Wu thanked the elected state and federal officials on hand for their partnership and the city’s workers “for making everything we do possible,” a remark that drew extended applause from the audience.

      She noted that 250 years ago, Henry Knox embarked on his epic winter journey that transported the heavy cannons from the captured Ft. Ticonderoga in upstate New York to Dorchester Heights, an against-all-odds feat that ultimately enabled George Washington to force the British fleet and occupying army to withdraw from the city on March 17, 1776, for the remainder of the Revolutionary War.

      Wu highlighted some of the major accomplishments of her first term, including the reduction of gun violence in the city to an all-time low, the construction of 4,200 affordable new homes with 2,000 more in the pipeline, and the expansion of pre-K education for 5,000 families.

      “We’ve seen how much is possible because of how far we’ve pushed forward together. But we need to keep pushing,” Wu said, “because in some ways right now, the world feels helplessly stuck. We know what problems need fixing, but we’ve lost faith that we can fix them.

      “Today the forces we face are not British troops on the Common or ships in our harbor, but they demand no less ingenuity. Isolation, polarization, and misinformation are fraying our connection to trust, truth, and each other. And against this backdrop, the federal government is taking aim at the ways in which we take care of each other,” Wu continued, citing the federal cutbacks in emergency management, research, and housing, as well as what she termed, “the abduction of our neighbors off our sidewalks and outside our schools…and the illegal deployment of our troops against our own families and neighbors in peaceful American cities. This federal administration has plundered our economy, ravaged our reputation, torched our institutions, and destroyed the lives of our people.

      “Boston will be a beacon,” Wu said to a standing ovation, “and we will not wait for permission to build the world our families deserve.”

      Wu also promised that her second term will focus on making the city safer and improving the city’s parks, playgrounds, streets, services, and schools, as well as streamlining the city’s permitting processes.

      “We will work to address the housing needs of our families and seniors, focusing on solutions they want and can afford,” Wu said. “Over the next four years, we will continue inventing new ways to use public planning, public finance, and public land to create the homes our residents need, because we know that housing is a public good. We will not be defeated by the affordability crisis of the present.

              “If we can invent America, then we can be the city that forges the path forward in this moment. If we are willing to try, with a little help from each other, we can build the future that our families deserve,” Wu concluded.