Obama Presidential Center opening today in Chicago with star-studded dedication ceremony

Thursday kicks off a celebration that will last through the weekend as the Obama Presidential Center opens in Chicago.

Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, who returned to town last week, will welcome former presidents, Chicagoans and longtime supporters for a dedication ceremony in Jackson Park beginning at 11 a.m. CT.

The event will be held, rain or shine, in the center’s main plaza, named after the late civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. As has been the tradition for dedications of other presidential museums, former presidents are expected to attend — specifically George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden — as are many other local political leaders.

Music has also been a tradition for the Obamas, and the event will feature top-tier talent, including Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson and rock band U2’s Bono and The Edge. The invocation will be led by the Rev. Joel Hunter, a Florida-based evangelical pastor who has prayed with and advised Obama since his first election, and Joshua DuBois, a former Obama staffer during his time in the U.S. Senate and a spiritual adviser known for sending Obama daily devotionals.

Both Obamas will speak, as will business owner Marty Nesbitt, who chairs the Obama Foundation, and the foundation’s CEO, Valerie Jarrett.

The foundation hoped to hold the ceremony in more favorable weather. Wednesday’s storms are expected to give way to a cloudy, windy day with temperatures in the low 70s. Predecessor Bill Clinton’s presidential museum dedication in Little Rock, Arkansas, was beset by a downpour.

For those who didn’t receive an invite to the event or tickets to the watch party along the Midway Plaisance, the foundation will stream the event on its social media pages.

The celebratory nature of the event stands in sharp contrast to a nation that is currently sharply divided along political lines. The Obama center is holding a ceremonial retrospective of the history-making election of the country’s first Black president at a time when the nation prepares to honor its 250th birthday and is clouded by the controversial presidency of Donald Trump.

Trump, who has made Chicago a political punching bag since his first term and earlier this week shared on social media an AI-generated image of the OPC’s museum tower as a trash can surrounded by encampments, was not invited. He is returning from France, where the G7 nations’ meeting was held.

The museum and the rest of the campus — a forum building, parkland and Chicago Public Library branch — will formally open to the public on Friday, June 19, which is Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. The opening will cap off a more-than-decade-long development and construction saga held up by lawsuits, construction delays and the reworking of one of the city’s most historic parks and a major thoroughfare.

The Obamas and foundation leadership have described the project as an effort to give back to the South Side, and they are banking on the center becoming a tourist attraction that will provide an economic boost and first-class amenity to adjacent neighborhoods.

The Obamas have made a handful of public appearances since coming back to town, including meeting with kids at the campus playground and a thank-you celebration on Tuesday with people who worked on various aspects of the museum and campus. There, both Obamas spoke of Chicago’s centrality to their life’s work.

“Most of what has been important in my life is because of this place and the people here, because the people here taught me resilience and courage and hope,” the former president, U.S. senator and state senator said Tuesday. “When I went to Washington and when we started campaigning around the country, I was carrying a piece of this community with me the entire time.”

Michelle Obama, who grew up not far from Jackson Park, said she hoped the center “will be the beginning of telling the kids in this community that they are just as important, just as capable, just as valuable” and worthy of investment as the parks and cultural attractions downtown.

Appearing on a podcast for Washington, D.C.-based Punchbowl News in Chicago, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker made a pitch for people to visit the Obama center, saying, “You’ll become a Democrat if you go.”

“I just want everybody to know we’re having festivities this week that are well deserved, because this is not only a phenomenal development for the city of Chicago, but also people who will visit this are going to experience, first, what the Obama presidency was all about, but second, it’s a beautiful, beautiful facility. They’ve done an amazing job,” Pritzker said.