Chicago, United States. Former President Barack Obama led thousands of attendees on Thursday at the music-filled grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center, a lakefront campus in Chicago dedicated to honoring and archiving his administration. He was joined by former first lady Michelle Obama and dignitaries including three other former U.S. presidents, several foreign heads of state and recording artists such as Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen.
Opening of the center
The $850 million development opens to the public on Friday and is described as the largest single investment in a century for Chicago’s South Side, where the Obamas were married and made their family home.
Campus features and purpose
The museum complex includes a performing arts hall, library and athletic center. It was designed to preserve the legacy of Obama’s two terms in the White House and to function as a center of civic life and culture on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Remarks by Michelle Obama
In her speech on Thursday, Michelle Obama said a lasting legacy is defined by the difference people make in one another’s lives, not by war, a building name or wealth. She noted her husband’s Nobel Peace Prize and praised his “stubborn optimism.”
“With grace and class and cool, you made the hardest job in the world look like a walk in this beautiful park,” she said in remarks that brought him to tears.
Remarks by Barack Obama
In a separate speech, Barack Obama said that “appeals to democracy and civic participation” may seem “old-fashioned” and “naive” at a time when “the future feels uncertain, the ground unstable beneath our feet.”
He urged Americans to maintain faith in the country’s founding principles of equality and self-government. “I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious, our democracy truly is, and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens,” he said.