Setti Warren, who served as Newton’s mayor from 2010 to 2018, died on Sunday at age 55. Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced his death to the community, expressing shock and sadness.
“Setti loved Newton, the community where he grew up, and combined that love with a passion for public service and an unshakeable belief that government can be a force for good,” Fuller stated.
His cause of death is yet to be known. “On behalf of the residents of Newton, I extend our sympathy to his wife Tassy, his children Abigail and John, his extended family and many friends—as well as from me and my husband Joe, our love,” Fuller added.
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Warren had been serving as director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics since 2022.
“He will be remembered at Harvard by the many students he helped to teach, nurture, and mentor,” an announcement of his demise by Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein and Harvard College Dean David J. Deming stated.
“Setti’s students loved him, and their impact–like his–will reverberate for generations to come.”
A barrier breaker in Massachusetts politics and an Iraq War veteran, Warren was a twin, born in 1970 with his twin sister Makeda. He grew up in Newton, with his father, Joseph Warren, being an African-American studies professor who worked for the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. His mother, Elidia, was a social worker.
Warren began holding leadership positions right from school, serving as class president at Newton North High School and student body president at Boston College, where he earned a degree in history in 1993 before receiving his law degree at Suffolk University Law School in 2006.
In 1996, Warren worked for President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign and eventually became the regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency after holding various jobs in the Clinton administration from 1996 to 2001. Warren also worked for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and later worked in Kerry’s Senate office. In his hometown, Warren served on the Newton Community Preservation Committee and the Newton Economic Development Commission.
After enlisting in the Naval Reserve, Warren went to Iraq to serve as an intelligence specialist in 2007. Upon learning that Mayor David Cohen wouldn’t seek re-election, Warren decided to run and was elected mayor of Newton in 2009, becoming the first elected African-American mayor in Massachusetts.
He ran at a time when Newton was in a state of profound shock and confusion following a “bitter fight” about building a new, expensive high school, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who grew up there, said to WBUR.
Still, Auchincloss said, “Setti got out there and was just joyful. Just door-to-door, one-on-one conversations, knitting the city back together.”
Warren defeated State Rep. Ruth Ruth Balser in the 2009 mayoral election and won re-election four years later. Auchincloss said Warren was someone who made “ each person he was talking to feel like they mattered.”
“When I first ran for City Council, it was his style of door-to-door dynamism that inspired me,” Auchincloss wrote after Warren’s death.
“ Then Setti went to City Hall and he delivered; he did it,” Auchincloss said. “And that’s what we need more of … these, these gritty one-on-one conversations where we hear what people care about and then we go and do something about it.”
Warren launched a campaign to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate in 2011, but he later abandoned the race and endorsed Elizabeth Warren (they are not related). In 2018, he ran for governor but did not succeed.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a post on X Sunday that she was sad to learn of his death.
“Massachusetts lost a light today,” she wrote. “Setti was a true public servant. I’m thinking of him and his family.”
Warren is survived by his wife, Tassy, and children, Abigail and John.
