Photos courtesy of The Obama Foundation
girls so bright and so hungry to go to school, she sees herself in them, sees her daughters in them— an older white woman leaned against the wall. On that wall are these words of the 44th president:“ We may have different stories, but we hold common hopes.”
Omega Finney, a registered nurse visiting from Atlanta, put the cumulative effect of her climb through the tower plainly. The center, she said,“ is nostalgic, positive, and came at the right time.” Then, with a sense of urgency, she said:“ We all need this right now. I feel fired up to go back to my community to do more.”
Finally, after a short elevator ride, visitors enter the Nelson Mandela Sky Room on the eighth floor, where the windows do the curating. From here, you can see the entire city of Chicago— but from the South Side, looking out. Visitors accustomed to viewing the city from downtown observation decks are turned around – by this sightline. From this perspective they can see the nearby communities of Jackson Park and other neighborhood ecosystems that survive and thrive beyond the vision of people who seldom venture into Chicago’ s South Side.
What they see is unmistakably a view of a neighborhood in which the Barack Obama Presidential Center is not only a symbol but a development project, with tangible consequences for residents, housing, property values, and local politics. For some, it represents investment and cultural recognition; for others, it raises questions about displacement, affordability, and who gets to benefit when history becomes a destination.
Nayla Hale and Kyndal Hill, community organizers born and raised on the South Side, call it a positive and controversial asset in the same breath. They say the addition of a public library branch to the Obama Presidential Center is the most significant development for this community.
Other activists have called the project rushed, disingenuous, and symbolic. In the opening days, picketers from the African American Contractors Association stood outside the campus seeking payment for subcontractors— many of them Black-owned firms. They said they are owed millions of dollars for the role they played in building the Obama Center, the Chicago Sun- Times reported. Even though they were hired by prime contractors, not the Obama Presidential Center, these subcontractors wanted their
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