Obama Presidential Center Opens

 

Nearly ten years after leaving office, former President Barack Obama consistently polls as the most popular American politician, and the new Obama Presidential Center will open to the public in Chicago June 19th (Juneteenth). The Center’s buildings and grounds are owned by the City of Chicago with a 99-year lease to the nonprofit Obama Foundation. 

The Center’s buildings include a museum, the first fully digitized presidential library, a public library, classrooms, community meeting spaces, and athletic facilities, all in a scenic 19-acre Jackson Park campus with a Women’s Garden, a Wetlands Walk, a playground, a picnic lawn, and indoor and outdoor art works. The Center is in Chicago’s South Side near its partner the University of Chicago where Obama taught constitutional law for 12 years and is not far from where Michelle grew up.

The four-story Center Museum is the architectural focus of the campus and “explores the promise and power of democracy through the legacy of President and Mrs. Obama.” Some highlights of Obama’s legacy from his 2009-2017 presidency include

·       managing recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09 so successfully that steady economic growth began in 2010 and continued until the pandemic of 2020 

·       providing affordable healthcare to millions of uninsured or underinsured through Obamacare

·       joining the Paris Climate Accords to slow climate change by reducing use of fossil fuels

·       creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that has returned $21 billion to consumers defrauded by financial institutions

·       killing Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks

·       negotiating a successful nuclear agreement with Iran.

The Museum includes immersive exhibits, a replica Oval Office, memorabilia from election campaigns, stories about key events from the President’s administration, and interactive activities for visitors of all ages. While the rest of the Center is free to the public, the Museum has an entry fee of $30 or $23 for children. (June tickets are sold out.) The Obama Foundation expects 700,000 visitors a year. 

The Home Court building features a regulation NBA court, practice courts, classrooms, and flexible meeting spaces, all devoted to wellbeing and health, life and leadership skills, career exploration, and relationship building. The Obama Foundation’s goal is to build a new generation of leaders by offering programs for graduate, undergrad, and high school students as well as for people already in leadership positions. 

In May, Stephen Colbert devoted one of his last Late Show programs to visiting the still unfinished Center Museum where he interviewed the President who then gave him a tour. During the interview, Obama stressed that the Center is nonpartisan, welcoming Democrats, Republicans, independents, and others. He said that the country “is better off with two healthy parties” and expressed concern that only one is healthy now.

During the tour, Obama introduced four young people in a community leadership program soon to be hosted in the Center. Colbert jumped at the chance to have a little fun, teaching one young man how to speak like Obama: Say “Look,” then pause, pause longer, still longer, then speak your piece. Funny, and it worked.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the first presidential library in 1939 by donating his papers to the National Archives and selecting land near his home in Hyde Park, N.Y., for a building to house them. Every president since Herbert Hoover has, or is planning, a library. Because most Obama-era documents were digital, the Obama Foundation is paying the Archives to digitize those that are not.  

The Center is meant to be “a force for change” as we celebrate our change to a nation 250 years ago.