Janey says thanks
Acting mayor says her ‘joy agenda’ will go on, stays mum on endorsement
Acting Mayor Kim Janey made her first campaign appearance following a fourth-place finish of five major candidates in the mayoral preliminary, and after skipping her own election-night party.
“I don’t want people to walk away without hope,” she said Friday afternoon, addressing a packed room of purple-clad supporters at her Centre Street headquarters. “This is a great day. This is a joyous day. We will continue to be intentional about creating space for joy.”
Janey made her “Joy Agenda” central to both her campaign and her speech Friday. She previously told the Herald that this agenda, which included moves like waiving late fees at the city’s libraries and funding public events, “comes out of a tradition (of ) being a Black woman — being the granddaughter of a Black preacher.”
At least a couple of supporters wiped tears from their eyes as Janey spoke, thanking her family, her pastor and her staff for their hard work.
Janey’s only child, her daughter Kimesha Janey whom she had when she was a teen, admitted that she didn’t even want her mother to run for office in the first place.
“I didn’t want her to run — it was selfish of me,” she said, explaining that she knew her mother “was going to be the one that everybody was going to attack, and I didn’t want that for my mom. But she wanted to put the city on her back.”
Kim Janey thanked her daughter for getting her politically involved, explaining that she inspired her to become a community organizer and to advocate for education and family issues.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said of her rise to the top job in Boston from being a teen parent who grew up in the projects. Referencing the “seeds” she planted in her term so far as mayor, she reminded the audience that “it’s up to us to make sure we see that harvest, this work is not done,” she said. “I want people to leave here encouraged. I want people to leave here committed to doing the work moving forward.”
Janey has not yet endorsed a candidate for mayor out of the two finalists, Michelle Wu and Annissa EssaibiGeorge, and has said she is not sure if she will make an endorsement at all. All she said about her former competitors is that she “(takes) comfort in knowing that there will be a woman leading our city.”
Along with Janey’s votes from Tuesday’s primary, votes from Andrea Campbell and John Barros, the three Black candidates in the race, are up for grabs.
Among chatter in the crowd, at least two supporters were overheard saying they’d support Wu, but one supporter said he’d vote for Essaibi-George.
“I don’t know who’s listening in Boston — I’m a Republican, not very popular here,” said Javier Lopez, 24, who attended Janey’s gathering. He said he supported Janey for her religious grounding and her stance against vaccine passports like New York has.
“And I know this city, my views aren’t very popular in the city. But again, she shared some of those views,” he added,
Finally, he said, he’s disappointed Janey won’t be the first elected Black and female mayor of Boston. “She would have been an inspiration to young girls everywhere.”