CHICAGO — Almost 250 years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, former President Barack Obama, the 44th and first African American president, officially opened his Obama Presidential Center before a star-studded crowd of supporters on the South Side of Chicago, where he launched his career.
With a good deal more grey hair than when he left the presidency almost a decade ago, Obama stood before thousands gathered in Chicago’s Jackson Park to watch onscreen and hundreds of invited guests on the campus grounds to open his namesake Obama Presidential Center.
Underlying presentations and remarks throughout the hours-long ceremony at the center, which opens to the public Friday, were ideals set forth in our nation’s founding document, Obama said, noting displays in the new museum would pay homage to the many chapters of American history and showcase the work of civil rights leaders.
“The story we tell in this building begins not with Michelle’s origins or my origins, but with our nation’s,” Obama said. “With a founding era print of the Declaration of Independence, and a pen and inkstand used by Frederick Douglass. Lincoln’s Bible and a pamphlet by Ida B. Wells. Suffragist button, and a hard hat worn by FDR’s Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.”
“The exhibits here focus not just on policies, but on the shared values that make democracy possible,” Obama said.
Star-studded ceremony
The ceremony began with a performance by hip-hop band The Roots, followed by an introduction of distinguished guests. Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj came to the stage first.
They were followed by former Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff. Then, the four living former presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Obama and their first ladies, took their seats on a wide stage alongside a concert stage. Next to the Obamas were their daughters, Sasha and Malia, who spent part of their childhood growing up in the public eye at the White House.
Additional VIP guests included Obama administration officials, former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former Attorney General Eric Holder, and a number of celebrities from the arts and entertainment world, including Stephen Colbert, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Tom Hanks and Mark Hamill.
Notably absent from the ceremony was President Donald Trump, whom the Obama Foundation did not invite. Then-President Obama attended the dedication of the most recent presidential center to open, that of President George W. Bush, in 2013. Bush has become a friend of the Obamas, underscoring a once more bipartisan era.
Obama Foundation executives, CEO Valerie Jarrett and Chairman of the Board of Directors Marty Nesbitt, gave opening remarks. Jarrett, a longtime friend and advisor to the Obamas, spoke of the significance of housing the campus on Chicago’s South Side and its inclusive vision.
“This center may be named for the Obama’s, but it is built for you,” Jarrett said.
Nesbit donned a tan suit during his remarks, which he pointed out in reference to the now-infamous “tan suit controversy,” in which the former president was criticized by opponents for wearing the color at a 2014 news conference.
Performances by local and superstar artists sprinkled the proceedings. Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Common, U2’s Bono & The Edge, Marc Anthony, Tems, Eddie Vedder, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen were among the performers that had the crowd on their feet with moving music that often evoked the signature calls to hope of the Obamas.
Obamas give remarks
Nearly two hours into the ceremony, First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama delivered final remarks.
At the start of her speech, the former First Lady promised to “fully sing” her husband’s praises. She reflected on her marriage, her family’s roots in Chicago and lauded the accomplishments of her husband’s administration.
“How absurd it is to imagine that you would have done anything but make our family and this country proud,” Obama said, as her husband held back tears.
The former first lady, who grew up on the South Side, went on to applaud the historic contributions of working people and immigrant communities to democracy and appeared to push back on anti-immigrant sentiment, invoking language from the Declaration of Independence.
“A dangerous precedent that flies in the very face of our faith and of the founding promise of this democracy, that all of us, all of us are created equal,” Michelle Obama said. “That each of us is a child of God with inherent value, and no one, and I mean no one, has the right to sit in judgment of who’s American enough.”
‘American values we can all share, regardless of party’
Former President Obama made the event’s final speech, which he began by tracking his journey from working as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side to meeting his wife, starting his family and running for office.
“This is where we bought our first home. This is where our kids took their first steps. This is where I launched my candidacy for the Illinois State Senate over at the Ramada Inn on Lake Shore Drive, serving pretzels and soda, embarking on a path that ultimately and improbably led to this day,” Obama said.
Obama served in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 until his election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004. He served alongside fellow Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, who was seated in the audience beside Gov. JB Pritzker.
Obama continued by paying tribute to America’s founding 250 years ago, explaining the hopes and values that underscore the purpose of his new center — including a call to the next generation to pick up the torch to defend those values.
“Out of the fire and steel of a revolution, a different story took flight,” Obama said. “That in the newly independent United States, there will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens, each of us free to pursue our own version of happiness and able to determine our collective fate through an elected representative government.”
Obama concluded his remarks by telling the story of Reverend Theodore Parker, a 19th-century Boston-area abolitionist minister whose famous quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” directly inspired Dr. Martin Luther King.
“His words offered no easy answers, no comforting assurances that he or his congregation would live to see the progress they so desperately sought,” Obama said. “Rather, his was a declaration of faith, a defiant call not to abandon hope or give way to fear, but to stay true to our better selves and true to one another, and to keep fighting to fulfill the promise of this nation, even in the face of cruelty and bitter disappointment.”
A sculpted arch interpretation of Parker’s “moral universe” sits on the Obama Center campus. It is set to open its doors to the public this Friday, Juneteenth, the federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
Ultimately, Obama emphasized the center was about and for Americans more than any one president, and the continuing work Americans have before them.
He emphasized that “in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time. And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor — those things matter in our public dealings just as they do in our private lives.”
“They are not Republican or Democratic values,” he concluded. “They are American values we can all share, regardless of party. Values every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold. Values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in, no less than I did.”
Aidan Klineman is an undergraduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, and is a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.