Social and Civic Whirl: Local Resident Attends Loretta Lynch Installation

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, Sarah S. Sweatt a Norfolk resident (originally from Suffolk), traveled to Washington, D. C. to witness the Installation Ceremony of the Eighty-Third Attorney General of the United States, her cousin, The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch.   According to Mrs. Sweatt, “She was truly elated and surprised when the invitation, to the Installation Ceremony arrived in the mail!”

Ms. Lynch, as stated in her resume, is a native of Durham, North Carolina and is the daughter of parents whose belief in justice and public service “has been the inspiration for her life’s work.”  Loretta dedicated, June 17, 2015, which she will never forget, to her parents Lorenzo and Lorine Lynch a retired pastor and a librarian respectively.

After graduating cum laude from Harvard College in 1981 and receiving her JD, in 1984, from Harvard Law School, Ms. Lynch did some private practice law work followed by an impressive career in the United States Attorney’s Office/Eastern District of New York located in Brooklyn. Loretta E. Lynch’s resume continues by stating that President Clinton, in 1999, appointed her to lead the Office as United States Attorney. She left that post in 2001 and in 2002 joined Hogan and Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells) as a partner. Once President Obama took office, he asked Lynch to again assume her leadership position at the United States Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn where her guidance led to the prosecution of corrupt officials, terrorists and other criminal elements in New York. After a long time between when President Barack Obama announced his “intention to nominate” Attorney Loretta E. Lynch for the position of Attorney General of the United States, on November 8, 2014, Vice President Joe Biden finally had the honor of swearing-in/confirming Loretta E. Lynch, on April 27, 2015 as the 83rd Attorney General of the United States. 

Attorney General Lynch’s Installation Ceremony included friends and people whose lives she touched.  The guests were Welcomed by a former law firm co-worker, The Honorable Sally Quillian Yates/Deputy Attorney General; the Presentation of Colors was done by the Military District of Washington’s Joint Armed Forces Color Guard; Shawnee C. Ball/Antitrust Division United States Department of Justice, a young woman who had been mentored by Attorney Lynch, sang the National Anthem; and the Pledge of Allegiance was done by the Bedford Academy High School/Brooklyn, New York where Loretta Lynch had been involved in a mentoring program.

The program continued with the praying of the Invocation, by a friend of her father’s, Rev. Dr. Clarence G. Newsome followed by a Musical Presentation performed by The Morgan State University Choir.  The President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, made remarks.  With one hand on the Bible, given to Frederick Douglass by the Metropolitan AME Church located in Washington as he departed for Haiti in 1889 (loaned to Ms. Lynch by the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site) and held by her mother, the 83rd Attorney General of the United States was installed by The Honorable Sonia M. Sotomayor an Associate Justice/Supreme Court of the United States in a very impressive Installation Ceremony.  Prior to the Closing by the DEA Black and Gold Pipes and Drums, The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch/ The Eighty-third Attorney General of the United States gave inspirational remarks.