HPR is featuring stories about the upcoming Obama Presidential Center in the days before its scheduled opening on Friday, Juneteenth.
It’s a fitting tribute to the nation’s first African American president, and HPR had the opportunity to attend a preview in Chicago to learn more about the center.
As construction crews scurried to put the finishing touches on the facilities before the formal opening, HPR took the time to speak with journalist Lynn Sweet.
Sweet is a special correspondent for Chicago Public Media who previously served as the Chicago Sun-Times’ Washington Bureau Chief. She’s reported on Barack Obama since his state Senator days.
“I've covered this project since before it was a project,” she told HPR. “I knew from the day Obama became president that one day there would be something like this.”
Sweet shared her thoughts on the message and purpose of the Obama Presidential Center. She noted how it was built — like Obama’s political legacy — upon the work of a previous generation of civil rights leaders.
“The whole part of the story, when Obama says he stands on the shoulders of the people who came before him, the leaders of the civil rights movement, this is not a new theme for him,” she explained.
“I think that is a reason why it was important for him to have some naming and dedicating something to him here.”
As much as it was built upon the past, Sweet also observed that the museum was literally designed to reach into the future as well.
“I think it can be summed up by the letters on the south face of the building … the one thing that you can see that does jump out is ‘Yes We Can,” she said.
“That is my analysis. The spirit and the values they're trying to put, since this place will be here in perpetuity. This place will be here for the ages, and I think they have the presumption that the way things are today are not the way things will be tomorrow.”
The center is a 19-acre campus that includes a museum dedicated to Obama’s life, a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, and public facilities including a playground, garden, and even an NBA-regulation size basketball court.
Sweet explained to HPR that there’s hope that these impressive facilities will be a source of rejuvenation to the South Side of Chicago, where the center is located.
“I am interested to see how some of the promises made unfold,” she told HPR. “The promise for this to be an economic engine for the South Side, which has needed for decades more attention, more resources, more assets in this community.”
And she isn’t alone — local children and students are excited to make use of the recent additions to the neighborhood.
Three students were heading home from their school near the Obama Presidential Center campus, and they took the time to share their thoughts.
“I feel like it's a good thing because it's kind of supporting the school a bit too,” one of them told HPR.
“Say if you was getting boring, and you'd like to go read books or something, yeah, it would be really nice. And then you’d go with your family members and stuff, and then when you're done, they could, like, go out to eat or something.”
For more coverage of the Obama Presidential Center in the days leading to its opening, click here.
This story aired on The Conversation on June 16, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
