November 4, 2025
Rep. Ayanna Pressley remembered her “expensive buddy” as a “devoted public servant” who she had spoken with the evening earlier than his passing.
The state of Massachusetts is in mourning as information unfold of Setti Warren, the primary Black man elected as mayor of Newton, passing away at 55, The Boston Globe experiences.
Management at Harvard College, the place Warren served as director of the Kennedy College’s Institute of Politics, made the announcement Nov. 2 with out disclosing a trigger or time of dying. “Setti was a beloved member of our group, and we’re devastated by this heartbreaking information,” Jeremy Weinstein, Kennedy College Dean, and David Deming, Dean of Harvard Faculty, mentioned in a press release, corresponding with a put up on X.
The assertion continued, highlighting Warren “for example to us all.” “Every time he noticed a problem, he ran towards it –– not away from it –– and our college and nation are higher for it,” the assertion continued. The Iraq Warfare veteran served as a daring and distinguished voice in politics on the native, state, and federal ranges. Based on WBUR, Warren broke obstacles within the state after being elected Newton’s mayor in 2009, changing into the primary Black elected mayor in Massachusetts.
U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who grew up within the metropolis, remembers Warren as being a fighter at a time when Newton wanted him most following a bitter battle over constructing an expensive highschool. Auchincloss described his late buddy as somebody who made “ every particular person he was speaking to really feel like they mattered,” and adopted by means of, honoring the door-knocking dynamic that impressed him to run for Congress. “Setti obtained on the market and was simply joyful. Simply door-to-door, one-on-one conversations, knitting the town again collectively,” the congressman mentioned.
“ Then Setti went to Metropolis Corridor and he delivered; he did it,” Auchincloss mentioned. “And that’s what we’d like extra of … these, these gritty one-on-one conversations the place we hear what individuals care about after which we go and do one thing about it.”
In an interview with The New York Instances on the time of the election, Warren mentioned his focus was to alter the lives of these in his group. “What I really feel most captivated with is making individuals’s lives higher, and I needed to do it proper right here in my very own group,” he mentioned in 2009.
Warren held the highest spot for 2 years till 2018. Previous to that, he served because the deputy state director for Sen. John Kerry’s Massachusetts workplace from 2004 to 2008, and he additionally held positions within the Clinton administration.
At Harvard, he led the Institute of Politics from 2022 after serving as the chief director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Middle on Media, Politics, and Public Coverage.
Notes of sorrow have been showcased on social media from state leaders, together with Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who remembered her “expensive buddy” as a “devoted public servant” whom she had spoken with the evening earlier than his passing. “I’m heartbroken to study of the sudden transition of my expensive buddy and former Kerry colleague, Setti Warren. There might be loads of time to recollect him as a proud Democrat, devoted public servant, and convener, however for now, I simply wish to bear in mind the respectable, type, and good man that he was,” she wrote on X.
“Setti was a loving son, brother, devoted husband, and father. He was all the time prepared with a hug, a straightforward and deep snort, and sort eyes that twinkled. He’s somebody you have been all the time completely happy to see coming your method. He radiated gentle and optimism. Setti had a lot life left to stay, milestones to expertise, hearts to the touch, and lives to alter.”
Warren leaves behind his spouse, the co-executive director and chief technique officer at Harvard’s Middle on the Growing Baby, Tassy, and their two youngsters, Abigail and John.
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