…as Presidential Center anchors South Side Renewal
‘This Center embodies America where everyone belongs’ – Ex-President Obama
By Jean Charles
More than four decades after arriving in the city “in search of an idea,” the first black President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama returned to the South Side neighborhood that shaped him, dedicating the Obama Presidential Center as a hub for learning, civic engagement and community pride.
Speaking steps from where he organized block by block as a young community organizer, the former President tied the Center’s location to his personal and political origin story.
The site sits within a five-mile radius of the neighborhoods he served in the Illinois State Senate and less than a mile from where he and Michelle Obama were married. Their daughters were born nearby.
In a post event release he made available to the media, the African-American noted that: “This Center could not be in any other neighborhood,” Obama said. He described the early years spent “listening to people, learning about their hardships and hopes” as the foundation for his belief in an America “where everyone has opportunity, everyone is seen, everyone belongs—because that was an America that had a place for me, too.”
Obama said he envisions the Center as more than a museum. He hopes visitors “stick around to experience everything this place has to offer,” and framed it as “a place of learning, joy, and play” that also celebrates the public servants who joined the journey.
Acknowledging the country’s current divisions, Obama said “these are difficult times, when it may seem like so much of what we fought for has been undone or hangs in the balance.” But he expressed confidence in a new generation of “Obama Foundation Leaders, Scholars, and changemakers” and local civic leaders “pointing a way forward.”
He closed his remarks by invoking the 2008 campaign refrain, urging Americans to “reclaim the spirit” of civic participation: “If we can… answer the call of their time—then together, we can see America through its present trial, align our politics with our highest ideals, and write a brilliant new chapter in America’s best story. Yes, we can.”
The Obama Presidential Center is under construction on the South Side and is expected to serve as a programmatic and cultural anchor for the surrounding community.
Barack Hussein Obama II was born on 4th August, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
After dedicated services as Community Organiser, he rose to become the 44th President of the United States, serving from 2009 till 2017.
Barack Obama had an early career as Community Organiser in Chicago’s South Side in the 1980s. He later taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago and served in Illinois State Senate 1997-2004.
He schooled at Columbia University BA; Harvard Law School JD, where he was first Black President of Harvard Law Review.
He got married to Michelle Robinson Obama in 1992 and the marriage is blessed with two daughters: Malia and Sasha.
Recorded for him as major initiatives are: Affordable Care Act “Obamacare”, Dodd-Frank financial reforms, Paris Climate Agreement, ended U.S. combat mission in Iraq.
Barack Obama was also awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy”.
He founded the Obama Foundation which focuses on leadership programs, and co-authored memoirs such as ‘Dreams from My Father’ and ‘A Promised Land’.
It is historic that Barack Obama announced his U.S. Senate candidacy in Chicago in 2003 and incidentally, the Obama Presidential Center is being built on South Side, near neighborhoods he organized and served
Photos:
Former President Barack Obama speaking at the site of the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side, the neighborhood where he began as a community organizer over forty years ago and later launched his political career. According to the first American black President, he hopes the Center becomes “a place of learning, joy, and play” for visitors and residents alike
