FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA PLANS TO TRANSFORM JACKSON PARK
FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA PLANS TO
TRANSFORM JACKSON PARK
By Christopher Shuttlesworth
Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a community event on May 3, 2017 at the South Shore Cultural Center, located on 7059 South Shore Dr., where the Obama Foundation released the conceptual vision and site map for the Obama Presidential Center.
The Obama Presidential Center, [which won’t be completed until 2021], will be integrated into Jackson Park, a historic park in the heart of the South Side of
Chicago and the community the Obamas call home.
“The Obama Presidential Center will also strengthen the economic climate of the community by bringing hundreds of thousands of visitors to the South Side every year,
creating new jobs and opportunities on the South Side and revitalizing historic Jackson Park,” according to a press release.
Obama said there are a lot of Presidential Libraries and he believes there is a tendency to think that his Presidential Center will be a monument of the past or display his record of accomplishments during his presidential terms.
“When Michelle and I started talking about the Presidential Center, we were
really firm on what we wanted to create which was something for the future, something that looks forward, not backwards,” Obama said. “And it’s because of that perception that we call it a center and not a library.”Obama
said Jackson Park is beautiful, but is lacking a vibrant energy when you drive
through the park, and he says it feels much different than Lincoln Park or
Millennial Park.
“It is not used in the same way and it is not accessible in the same way,”
Obama said. “It does not have features of the same sort and it’s not as good
as it could be. So, part of what we said was ‘how do we transform the park so
that it does start looking like Millennial Park and Lincoln Park, so things aren’t
that way on the North side and a different way on the South Side?”
According to the Obama Foundation, the Obama Presidential Center will be an engaging working center for Chicagoans and for more than 700,000 thousand tourists to explore.
“The Center will include a state of the art museum, classrooms, labs, and outdoor spaces, and it will conduct programs that will give visitors not just memories, but real tools to create change in their own communities,”
according to the Obama Foundation.
Obama said another creation that he and Michelle are excited about is how the upcoming center will create an institution that will train the next generation of
leaders, calling them the Michelle and Barack Obamas of today.
“They can take up the torch and lead the process of change in the future,” he said. “That is why we’re calling this a Presidential Center and that is why the design is not just a single building, but more like a campus. We want this to be the world’s premiere institution to train young people in leadership [and] to make a difference in their communities, countries and in the world.”
Obama said the program will only work through forming partnerships with different community colleges and working with them in public policy, government, politics and activism. He continued to say the program must be built by young people who have been a force in leading various issues such as criminal justice, climate change and job opportunities.
Part of the design for the center Obama envisions includes creating a space where people like Spike Lee or Steven Spielberg can come to Chicago and do workshops on how to make films centered around the stories young activists are working on. “We can have a recording studio where I can invite Chance
to talk about how you can record music that has social commentary and meaning,” he said.
Obama added although the building won’t be complete for another 4 years, the
program will begin in 2017 because the city can’t afford to wait four years to start
working.
“Michelle and I are going to personally donate two million dollars to our summer job programs here in the city so we can get to work,” Obama said. “So, we’ll be
working with the city, county and businesses because part of what we want to do is reach young people who might be at risk if they don’t have something to do
during the summer.”
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