Barack Obama opened his presidential centre with a call for Americans to remain politically active \u201ceven in the face of cruelty and bitterness\u201d during a ceremony fitting in its pomp, the scorn of its political foes, and the jubilation of legions of supporters who lament the former president\u2019s absence from the national stage.<\/p>\n
The centre is an attempt to make permanent a presidential legacy that has been in flux throughout Obama\u2019s years in national politics \u2013 and especially in the decade since he left office, as President Donald Trump has been determined to tear it down.<\/p>\n
On Thursday in Chicago, Obama denounced \u201cthose who see some groups or people as more equal than others, and who see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils or punish enemies, or keep those who are different in their place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nHyde Park and the University of Chicago seen from the Sky Room during a media preview of the Obama Presidential centre. Image: Talia Sprague\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The $850 million Obama centre dwarfs the libraries of the 44th president\u2019s predecessors\u00a0in both cost and scope. The 19-acre campus and five buildings, including a 225-foot museum looming over the city\u2019s Midway Plaisance, are a monumental addition to the Chicago landscape \u2013 an attempt to echo in architecture\u00a0Obama\u2019s soaring rhetoric about democracy and community organizing.<\/p>\n
But the towering \u201cObamalisk\u201d has also drawn fire from critics who have cast the complex as self-indulgent, architecturally domineering\u00a0and a usurpation of public parkland.<\/p>\n
The current president \u2013 who wasn\u2019t invited \u2013 was a notable omission from the ceremony, which featured former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden\u00a0as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris. Former world leaders who have drawn Trump\u2019s ire \u2013 including former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel \u2013 joined the Obamas on stage.<\/p>\n
If the guest list was an implicit repudiation, Obama was more explicit in his remarks, saying the nation\u2019s highest ideals did not include \u201ctrying to dominate and bully and squeeze every advantage just because we can\u201d but rather showing that \u201ceven a country as big and diverse as ours can make democracy work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former president spent Thursday leaning on a veneration of American ideals. In a familiar secular homily about brotherhood, shared sacrifice\u00a0and common causes, he spoke of universal ideas like a free press and inclusive society extolled by both parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cA belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to our people and our Constitution,\u201d Obama said. \u201cA belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nA \u201cYes We Can\u201d display in the \u201cWe the People\u201d exhibit gallery during a media preview of the Obama Presidential centre. Image: Talia Sprague\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Other attendees included current political foes of Trump, such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and California Governor Gavin Newsom, and potential future ones like Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and congressman who was Obama\u2019s chief of staff.<\/p>\n
All three are positioning themselves to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 \u2013 a contest that asks voters who can best stamp out the political movement Trump has fostered, and reverse an agenda that has largely erased Obama\u2019s own policy legacy.<\/p>\n
The structures reflect the interests and passions of the former president and Michelle Obama, the former first lady. The museum is decorated with commissioned works of art and a quote from one of Obama\u2019s own speeches. The grounds include vegetable gardens, a public library branch and a full-scale basketball court.<\/p>\n
As he often did during his presidency, Obama drew a flock of arts and cultural stars. Performers at the two-hour ceremony included Bono and The Edge, Stevie Wonder \u2014 the pop legend whose \u201cSigned, Sealed, Delivered\u201d provided the walk-off music to Obama\u2019s rallies \u2014 and Bruce Springsteen, who has been inveighing against Trump and his administration since his return to power last year.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nMusicians Bono and The Edge, of U2, perform during the opening of the Obama Presidential centre. Image: Mustafa Hussain\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
About 10,000 supporters gathered in Midway Plaisance park near the opening celebrations, with some arriving as early as 7:30 am to secure front row seats.<\/p>\n
Many guests donned Juneteenth-themed outfits, custom T-shirts or campaign gear from Obama\u2019s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n
Marci May, a Chicago native who volunteered on election night in Grant Park, said attending the day\u2019s celebration was a full-circle moment for her. She wore her shirt from the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver and her original campaign buttons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our current political moment, this is a great reminder of a time when our nation came together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The mood in Chicago was celebratory, even as it was shadowed by continuing tension between local and state elected officials and the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nBooks in the Presidential Reading Room at the Chicago Public Library\u2019s Obama Presidential centre Branch during a media preview of the Obama Presidential centre. Image: Talia Sprague\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The city and its suburbs have been fiercely contested ground in Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown. Reverberations continue from the attempt to prosecute protesters who opposed the detention of migrants outside the city. And Trump has continued to issue threats against Democrats in authority \u2013 including Pritzker \u2013 as midterm elections loom.<\/p>\n
Michelle Obama, in her remarks, alluded to the fight, saying that recognizing the contributions of immigrants was essential to preserving the spirit of the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one \u2013 no one \u2013 has the right to judge who is American enough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The first lady\u2019s speech was peppered with other implicit criticism of Trump, praising her husband for his \u201cquiet dignity\u201d and for refusing to lash out at a litany of attacks Obama faced as a candidate and president, including some that were false and others fanned by right-wing media into controversies.<\/p>\n
They included the falsehood \u2013 popularized by Trump \u2013 that Obama wasn\u2019t born in the US, and the criticism of Obama when he said after the killing of Trayvon Martin that his own son would have looked a lot like the slain child.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lies about your birthright,\u201d Michelle Obama said. \u201cWhen you stated the biological fact that if you had a son, that he too would be Black. Yes, you were unflappable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd laughed and cheered when she mentioned another Obama achievement: winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the award Trump has openly coveted and been denied.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nFormer US First Lady Michelle Obama speaks during the opening of the Obama Presidential centre. Image: Mustafa Hussain\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The ceremony in Chicago was in some way a looking-glass version of the event staged by Trump last weekend at the White House, where he spent his 80th birthday hosting a UFC cage match that included one fighter hurling a baseless slur at the former First Lady on a live broadcast from the South Lawn.<\/p>\n
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By contrast, Obama has largely avoided directly attacking his successor, even as Trump has devoted his two terms to eviscerating the policies and the tone that Obama left behind. It\u2019s partially a continuation of the unofficial omerta of former American presidents to avoid criticism within the small fraternity of Oval Office occupants, and partially what Obama has acknowledged to be a desire to now coach rather than lead \u2013 despite those who wish he were more involved.<\/p>\n
Among those is James Grossman, the former executive director of the American Historical Association and a specialist in African-American history, who has known Obama since they were neighbors in Hyde Park, before Obama\u2019s rise to fame and political power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a code among former presidents that you don\u2019t criticise,\u201d Grossman said in an interview, noting that neither Bush nor Clinton has been a fulsome critic of Trump either. \u201cI think there are many of us who think this is an unprecedented crisis, and they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama has been edging back into the action, including with an endorsement of Democrat James Talarico, the state lawmaker who is mounting an uphill bid for the Senate from Texas. And Obama\u2019s talent as an orator has led some to underestimate his skills at hardscrabble politics, said Grossman, noting that fervent \u2013 even rabid \u2013 opposition has been a persistent feature of his career.<\/p>\n
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Grossman compared it to the resistance to Reconstruction after the Civil War. \u201c(W.E.B.) Du Bois was absolutely right,\u201d Grossman said. \u201cThe one thing that White southerners feared more than anything else was Black success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Obama has sometimes struggled to reconcile his sweeping rhetoric with the realities of the current moment and president. Trump just this week mocked Obama as \u201cstupid\u201d \u2013 among other vulgarities \u2013 while addressing reporters during a G-7 summit in Europe.<\/p>\n
That tension was present again Thursday. The Obama centre itself, and Obama\u2019s speech, represented yet another attempt to pull the country together while acknowledging its disparate identities, privileges, and wounds.<\/p>\n
The former president said he was not \u201cimmune to anger or doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, he said, \u201cleadership has less to do with titles and rank or chasing attention than with helping others find their voice, reaching their potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#Obama #opens #centre #celebrities #rebuke #Trumpian #politics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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