Thursday, June 25, 2026
By Emma Ibrahim
In Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump is determined to leave his mark, leaving no stone unturned and few federal buildings without his name or portrait. But in Chicago, former President Barack Obama demonstrated a particular selflessness with his new Obama Presidential Center.
On Thursday, June 18, before a crowd of more than 3,000 people searching for faith, Obama delivered an impassioned speech at the center’s opening ceremony, shining a beacon of hope all the way from the South Side of Chicago to right here in the nation’s capital.
“As unsettled as we are, people aren’t looking for perpetual anger and division. They are looking for fairness and common sense and mutual respect, that deep in our gut we want to find a way to turn towards each other again, not further away,” Obama said.
The center, which opened its doors to the public on Juneteenth, hosts a museum — chronicling both the Obama presidency and U.S. history as told through social movements — along with a new Chicago Public Library branch, a full-size basketball court, a plaza for live music and festivals and sledding hills and playgrounds, all serving to celebrate community, the arts and our collective humanity.
“The exhibits here focus not just on policies but on the shared values that make democracy possible, a belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection,” Obama said.
While the trajectory our country has gone down these past few years has been turbulent and uncertain, we have not only lived through it, but courageously endured it — and when we finally arrive at a better, brighter future, we will be stronger for what we have survived.
The Obama Presidential Center is a testament to hope and the steadfast belief that, when ordinary people unite, from the Twin Cities to Los Angeles to our home in Washington, D.C., a different fate, one where we do not live in fear or disillusionment, is within our grasp.
“We can learn from the past, but America’s story isn’t frozen in the past,” Obama said. “It has chapters yet to be written, not by one person or a few people … but by all of us.”