All eyes are on Chicago on Thursday, as top Democrats, operatives and musical legends arrive to celebrate Barack Obama’s namesake presidential center in the city where the nation’s first Black president launched his political career.
The former president and first lady Michelle Obama are back in their hometown for the culmination of more than a decade of planning, legal fights, political squabbles and blueprints for massive economic development that have led to the Juneteenth public opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park.
A who’s-who of Chicago’s political elite will be on hand for Thursday’s dedication ceremony, which features an A-list musical lineup including Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Common, Eddie Vedder, John Legend and more.
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden will be on hand along with former first ladies Laura Bush, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden at the center’s John Lewis Plaza. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. Thursday.
The A-list crowd will mean heavy security, which the U.S. Secret Service likened to a smaller scale security plan similar to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 2024.
Thousands are expected to attend a ticketed watch party on the Midway Plaisance, which opens at 9 a.m. Thousands are also anticipated at the dedication ceremony.
“There will be anti-scale fencing, vehicle checkpoints, magnetometers. We’re going to have tactical assets there, some that are going to be publicly visible and some that won’t,” said James Morley, acting Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service Chicago Field Office. “We’ll have drone support for overwatch and there’s going to be a temporary flight restriction in place that’s going to restrict aircraft, as well as drones over the Obama Presidential Center.”
The center officially opens to the public on Friday, capping a journey that started with Obama’s 2015 announcement that he would build his presidential center on the South Side, where he started as a community organizer and served as a state senator.
His namesake foundation faced pushback from community organizers who demanded community benefits agreements, while parkland advocates mounted lengthy court battles in a failed attempt to block construction of the eight-story building in the heart of historic Jackson Park.
The foundation broke ground in September 2021, promising it would be a “university for activism and social change.”
“This day’s been a long time comin’,” the nation’s 44th president told a 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.
The South Side neighborhood is where Michelle Obama grew up, where the former president started his political career surrounded by a “vibrant neighborhood and a community where we believe we can help make a difference.”
The neighborhood was also the former president’s “entryway into Chicago.” He told of driving here in the summer of 1985 in a “pretty janky” car, coming off the Skyway and driving through Jackson Park which was “a lot more beautiful than I expected.”
In 2021, Obama said the center would be a “living, thriving home for concerts and cultural events” and a hub for those who “want to strengthen democratic ideals.”
U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Maryland, is among a long list of Democrats flying into Chicago for the opening. Obama personally called Alsobrooks after she won the Democratic primary in 2024, and helped to support her in her general election against former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.
“He was like a coach. He sat me down. We talked, and he gave me really great pieces of advice, but one of the things he said to me was to guard against cynicism,” Alsobrooks said. “He said, ‘You will be inundated with all kinds of information. You’ll be inundated with kind of the happenings of the world,’ and his advice to me was to really allow myself to remain in the place where I would be free of cynicism.”
Alsobrooks said the center’s opening during the second Trump administration is essential, because the country “needs to see each other as neighbors.”
“I think people need a reminder of what’s possible, and they need to know why we are still hopeful,” Alsobrooks said. “When I think about his election, it’s like it can never be erased. The significance of it can never be erased, not only his election, but his mere presence in that office.”