Kim Janey set to be first Black person, first woman to serve as Boston mayor

President-elect Joe Biden’s selection of Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh for his Cabinet means that City Council President Kim Janey is poised to become the first Black person and first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, making history amid a social justice movement sweeping the state and the nation.

Under city rules, if Walsh resigns to become Labor secretary, he would be replaced by the council president, the post Janey has held since January 2019. She would serve as acting mayor until a new election.

The second-term councilor, who raised a daughter as a teenager in Roxbury, would bring to the mayor’s office an unprecedented perspective of Boston, a city still struggling to heal its racial wounds.

“Every mayor of this city has been a white male,’' said Michael Curry, president of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. Curry noted that Janey comes from a Roxbury family steeped in community and activism. “She is no novice to politics and she’s not new to the community.”

Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/metro/kim-janey-set-make-history-bostons-first-black-woman-mayor/