Baton Rouge elects its first black woman mayor

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On Saturday, the East Baton Rouge Parish made history when it elected its first black woman mayor-president.

“Tonight Baton Rouge made a statement, a statement that we are a city of inclusion,” Sharon Weston Broome said in her acceptance speech after winning the tight race with 52 percent of the vote.

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“That we are a place of hope and optimism. A place where little boys and little girls of all walks of life know that they can grow up and lead a city no matter what their color or gender.”

Broome went on to give a message of unity at a time when the parish has been plagued by racial tensions in addition to the devastating flooding that rocked the community in August, leaving thousands injured, dead, or displaced, including Broome herself.

“Being unified is not only part of a vision for our future, it’s the backbone of the process that takes us there,”  she said. “We will work for the next four years to make our city an example of how to heal and progress past the hurt that we have seen.”