The Obamas were joined by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a plot in Jackson Park that will soon host the center. Ceremonial groundbreaking celebrations for the complex, which will not include the official Obama Presidential Library, began Monday and continued Tuesday with limited in-person attendance due to the pandemic.
Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama returned to Chicago on Tuesday for the official groundbreaking for the Obama Presidential Center, calling it a “university for activism and social change.”
“This day’s been a long time comin,’” the nation’s 44th president told the crowd when he took to the podium in Jackson Park.
“Chicago is where almost everything that is most precious to me began,” the former president said, a rendering of his presidential center behind him.
“It feels natural for Michelle and me to want to give back to Chicago and to the South Side in particular ... we will always be grateful for that and the Obama Presidential Center is our way of repaying some of what this amazing city has given us, but we’re also building this center because we believe it can speak to the struggles of our time.”
The Obamas, who were introduced by students from Chicago Public Schools, were joined by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a plot in Jackson Park that will soon host the center.
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During speeches before they put shovels into the ground, Lightfoot, Pritzker and the former first lady spoke about Tuesday’s groundbreaking as the start of the “next chapter” in the center’s journey, as Lightfoot put it.
“This groundbreaking marks the next chapter in a journey that began several years ago, with many twists and turns, but due to the perseverance, dedication and the hard work of many we’ve arrived at this momentous day,” Lightfoot said. “This is the future of the South Side that will be created in partnership with the community.”
Touting her roots on the South Side, and her love for the city, the former first lady said the center “allows us to live one of those values we learned right here and that is to give back something big and important and meaningful to the community that has given us so much.”
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Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times
The governor said Illinois is now known as the “land of Lincoln and Obama” since both presidents have monuments to their legacies in the state.
“The center will grow as the Obamas have lived,” creating new leaders and supporting their work, Pritzker said. “Today, with the groundbreaking of the Obama Presidential Center, like the state of Illinois there is abundance and opportunity ahead.”
Ceremonial groundbreaking celebrations for the complex, which won’t include the official presidential library bearing the former president’s name, began Monday and continued Tuesday with limited in-person attendance due to the pandemic.
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Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times
Ahead of the groundbreaking, the site at 61st and South Stony Island Avenue was primed for construction to begin, with excavators and bulldozers ready for operation and six silver shovels poised to be picked up, their blades hovering just above the dirt.
As a reminder of the controversy that has marked the project, a plane trailing a banner that read “Stop cutting down trees — move OPC” flew over the site shortly before the program began.
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Ashlee Rezin/ Chicago Sun-Times
Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), one of the City Council members whose ward includes the center, said there’s “always talk about the lack of investment in the South and West Sides —now we have investment in the South Side.
“What we’ve seen before, what I’ve seen before with this type of investment — like it was with the Comer Foundation and Greater Grand Crossing — that when people actually invest in our communities, our communities thrive,” Hairston said. “So, I’m excited to see that and so that we’re able to develop the kind of economic corridors and districts that other neighborhoods have because we surely are major consumers.”
Nearing the end of his presidency, Obama selected Jackson Park, the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, for the presidential center bearing his name in July 2016.
Picking that South Side park has sparked controversy and protests from housing and community activists who say the incoming center will cause residents to be priced out of their homes and from conservationists who took issue with the removal of trees for the project and argued it would negatively effect bird habitats.
About an hour before Obama took the stage, some housing advocates and residents gathered for a news conference to urge the city to ensure there are affordable housing protections for residents of South Shore, Washington Park and Greater Grand Crossing.
Asked about that news conference, Hairston said protections for affordable housing have already been written into a city ordinance. Groups representing residents of South Shore, which has a “different demographic,” have been working with Hairston’s office and that of Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th) and “we’ve been moving along fine so I would invite them to plug in,” she said.
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