What a boost; progress comes again from the Bay State.

City councilors voted Monday night to make Denise Simmons the new mayor of Cambridge.

Simmons, a member of the council since 2001, is the second consecutive mayor who is black and openly gay. She is the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor since Sheila Russell held the office from 1996-1997.

…”It feels really great,” Simmons said. “When I first came to the School Committee, one of the things I always said was that I wanted to be mayor.”

Statement from The Victory Fund:

“We are enormously proud of Mayor Simmons.  Like Mayor Ken Reeves before her, she is among our community’s trailblazers.  Today is a day to celebrate another broken glass ceiling,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund.