It's Finally Here

After many years of planning and hand wringing, The Obama Presidential Center opened this month in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. 

Pointedly, it opened to the public on the nineteenth of June, the day we celebrate the federal holiday of Juneteenth, commemorating the day in 1865 when the slaves of Texas were emancipated and with that came the official and final end of slavery in the United States. 

That day can rightfully be called the true American Independence Day as it was the ultimate fulfillment of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4th, 1776. This idea was confirmed by President Kennedy when on June 26th, 1963 while standing in front of Rathaus Schoenberg in Berlin he said this:

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

As I stated in earlier posts, the Obama Center belongs on the South Side of Chicago, the place where the first Black president of the United States spent many of his formative years and the childhood home of his wife Michelle Obama.

I also in those posts expressed my displeasure that the people who built the Center saw fit to place it on the edge of one of the city's most significant and beautiful parks, necessitating the destruction of over 600 trees, many of whom were over a century old, as well as several acres of parkland. 

For starters you can read about the specific site here and here. In total I have written about seven posts on the subject, several of which have links on these two posts. 

Since I've advocated for the Center but railed against its location on so many occasions, I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. Nor am I going to offer an opinion on the design of the campus because I haven't truly experienced it.

Yesterday on my way to a gig at the University of Chicago, I stopped by for the first time since its opening to snap some photos with my phone, two of which are these:

I'll have more to say about the Center after I have time to visit it in earnest.

All I'll say now, is that I'm thrilled the Center is finally built, and even more thrilled that it is on the South Side where it belongs. I just wish so much valuable park land didn't have to be sacrificed to build it. 

That's all.