Michelle Wu sworn in as Boston's mayor

SCREEN CAPTURE

Michelle Wu was sworn in as Boston's Mayor by Judge Myoun J. Joun.

 
Michelle Wu, the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, was officially sworn in as the next Mayor of Boston. She is the first woman and first Asian American to lead the historic city.

Wu, 36m took the oath of office Tuesday in the Boston City Council Chamber, just two weeks after her history-making election. Before Wu, Boston voters had elected only White men.

"Boston was founded on a revolutionary promise: that things don’t have to be as they always have been. That we can chart a new path for families now, and for generations to come, grounded in justice and opportunity,” she said after the swearing-in ceremony.

With her two young sons holding the Bible, Wu recited the Oath Office, repeating the words of Judge Myong J. Joun. 

Wu was sworn in on the Aitken Bible, the earliest complete English-language Bible printed in America. Often known as the “Bible of the Revolution,” it was published by Robert Aitken in 1782 and it was endorsed by the Congress as a symbol of American ingenuity.

Wu grew up in Chicago and moved to Boston to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School where she studied under U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. In 2016, her peers on the city's city council elected president of the Boston City Council. 

"City government is special," Wu said in her inauguration speech. "We are the level closest to the people, so we must do the big and the small. Every streetlight, every pothole, every park, and classroom, lays the foundation for greater change."

One of her progressive campaign planks was to eliminate fares on the city's public transportation system, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MTBA). She and her family rode the subway to the swearing-in ceremony.

Interviewed by Boston Public Radio, Boston Globe business columnist Shirley Leung told Boston Public Radio: “(Mayor Wu) won in every part of the city, and in doing so, it shows that Boston accepts Asian Americans — that even though she was not born in Boston or raised in Boston, she is a Bostonian."