In honor of Black History Month, Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaimed Feb. 23 as “Loretta Lynch Day,” honoring the former U.S. attorney general who was the first Black women confirmed to the position.
The proclamation was made at a Black history event at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. During her speech, Lynch talked about the current state of the nation under President Donald Trump, saying that many Americans are being left out of the current administration.
“How do you love a country when it does not love you back?” she asked. “Many of us, not just minorities, are asking that question today because we’re surveying a national landscape that has abdicated, completely abdicated the protection of the most vulnerable among us…it is calling into question once again who is fully an American.”
Before being confirmed U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama from 2015 to 2017, Lynch was U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York under Obama and President Bill Clinton. She oversaw federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.