New York City's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, delivered his inauguration speech yesterday and challenged New Yorkers to join him in remaking a more just and equitable city. Here's the conclusion of his remarks:
"The movement we began over a year ago did not end with our victory on Election Night. It will not end this afternoon. It lives on with every battle we will fight, together; every blizzard and flood we withstand, together; every moment of fiscal challenge we overcome with ambition, not austerity, together; every way we pursue change in working peoples’ interests, rather than at their expense, together.
No longer will we treat victory as an invitation to turn off the news. From today onwards, we will understand victory very simply: something with the power to transform lives, and something that demands effort from each of us, every single day.
What we achieve together will reach across the five boroughs and it will resonate far beyond. There are many who will be watching. They want to know if the left can govern. They want to know if the struggles that afflict them can be solved. They want to know if it is right to hope again.
So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: we will set an example for the world. If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York—and anywhere else too. Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.
The work continues, the work endures, the work, my friends, has only just begun."
The text of his address is here.
(photo: Mamdani with wife Rama Duwaji. Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
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