The hottest ticket in Chicago this summer isn’t for the Cubs, the White Sox, or even Lollapalooza—it’s for the Obama Presidential Center, which officially opened June 19 in the Jackson Park neighborhood on the city’s South Side. Thanks to a generous friend, I was able to visit the center in late June, and I experienced a restored pride and hope in our democracy after the tour. But the visit also made clear the contrast between the Obama years and America under Trump as we mark the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The brutalist architecture of the building doesn’t seem to match the positive, cheerful vibe on the center’s campus, but it does catch your attention as you approach. You can’t miss the 225-foot granite tower, its colorful, four-story, stained-glass window, and the letters on the facade spelling out the text from President Barack Obama’s 2015 speech commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the civil-rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The full quotation, which is repeated throughout the museum, succinctly summarizes the center’s message:
You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, and ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.
If visitors are lucky enough to visit on a beautiful summer day, as I did, they can enjoy the many public spaces, which do not require a museum ticket, including the fully inclusive and accessible playground, gardens, and picnic spaces. The John Lewis Plaza out front features a statue of the president and first lady as well as a gateway steel arc sculpture inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The day we were there, a DJ led folks in line dancing.
The Obama Center is the only presidential library to include an actual public library, and there were lines to enter and to sign up for a library card. (Even out-of-towners can get a souvenir library card for $5.) Inside the public library is the Presidential Reading Room with a curated collection of about three thousand of the president’s and first lady’s favorites and other written works that reflect their interests. If you enjoy Obama’s annual favorite books lists, you’ll love the reading room. The space is also filled with art and a few artifacts; a display case of particularly valuable and influential books includes a signed and dedicated copy of Pope Francis’s 2020 Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future.
The top floor of the museum, which is also free to visit via elevator, provides spectacular views of Chicago and of the art installation in the Sky Room’s ceiling that again highlights Obama’s words from the speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Ticketed museumgoers make their way to the top via escalators between the four floors of exhibits that trace the Obamas’ history and activism, the historic 2008 presidential campaign, and achievements of his two terms. If you’re willing to stand in line, you can get your picture taken at the president’s desk in a full-scale replica of the Oval Office. Woven throughout the four floors are exhibits emphasizing all Americans’ collective responsibility for democracy.
My favorite artifact (in addition to the display of some of Michelle Obama’s amazing dresses) was the Bible from President Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 inauguration, on special loan to the Obama Center from the Library of Congress. Obama used the Lincoln Bible to take the oath of office for both of his terms. Not mentioned in the exhibit is the fact that President Donald Trump also chose to use that Bible, along with a family Bible, at his inaugurations, controversially not placing his hand on the books while being sworn in last year. Unless I missed it, Trump is not mentioned anywhere at the center, nor was he invited to its dedication. But his shadow—and the backlash against the country’s first Black president that Trump stoked—are hard to ignore.
The contrast can be obvious: A diorama in the “People’s House” exhibit portrays the 2015 Girl Scout campout on the South Lawn, where the president made a surprise visit and sang campfire songs with the girls. Under the Trump administration, we got a crass, commercialized mixed-martial-arts fight that ended with the victor’s insults of the former first lady. The series of exhibits dedicated to the Obama administration’s achievements—titled “Working for the Common Good,” with a perhaps unintentional nod to a Catholic social teaching tenet—emphasize economic recovery (seventy-five consecutive months of positive job growth), international cooperation, environmental sustainability, health care, and inclusion of marginalized groups. Much can be debated about a fair number of Obama’s policies, but his accomplishments were many. And many of those have been rolled back or undone by the Trump administration.
But it was the overall tone of respect and dignity from a president that made me so pine for the Obama years. Imagine a president who reads books instead of watching Fox News! Or one who carefully reads, and often responds personally, to ten letters a day from everyday Americans, including from those who didn’t vote for him. (That exhibit was particularly moving.) Or a leader who acts with reverence for the office he holds, rather than seeing it as an opportunity for personal gain. Imagine a country that comes together to repent of its original sin of racism to elect a competent, if imperfect, leader.
The most popular gift shop items apparently are hats, sweatshirts, and other gear emblazoned with the simple word “hope” (not the iconic image from the 2008 campaign). You can also get “community,” “empathy,” and “imagination,” as a reminder of the Obama Center’s core values. The center is surely a monument to one man’s leadership, but it also issues a call to every American to do their part in making the country a better place. “You are America,” Obama still says. “What a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.” On this anniversary of the founding of this experiment in democracy, we have a lot of work to do.
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