Loretta Lynch made history Monday when she was sworn in as the nation's first black female attorney general.

Lynch was most recently the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District in New York, which includes Long Island.

Hofstra University law student Samantha McDowall says that Lynch is a role model for other African-American women.

"To be able to look at our attorney general, and see that she's someone that looks like me, it just gives you more ammunition, at least for me, in school," she said.

Lynch also acknowledged the significance of her position.

"If a little girl from North Carolina who used to tell her grandfather in the fields to lift her up on the back of his mule so she could 'see way up high grand-daddy', can grow up to become the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America, we can do anything," she said.