SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — As an audience packed the Landmark Theatre to see the new Syracuse mayor sworn into office, a Saturday afternoon felt much like the Sunday mornings so familiar to her as a pastor.
Sharon Owens, who was inaugurated as mayor privately on New Year’s Day and publicly two days later, basked in an hour-and-a-half of religious fervor and political optimism, with a strong emphasis on her race — she is, after all, the first black mayor of Syracuse.
The luster of the ceremony was with how it celebrated Owens’ arrival. Three priests — Bishop H. Bernard Alex, Bishop Colette Matthews-Carter, and Owens’ own mother Ester Daniels — invoked Christian prayer and hallelujahs. Even the state attorney general, Letitia James, spoke with the diction of a preacher. “Reverend Attorney General,” Alex dubbed her…