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Step inside the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and discover the stories behind one of America's most anticipated cultural landmarks. From the soaring museum tower and recreated Oval Office to Michelle Obama's iconic fashion collection and deeply personal artifacts from the Obama campaign and presidency, President and Mrs. Obama, Valerie Jarrett, and the team behind the Center reveal how it's redefining what a presidential library can be. More than a monument, it's an immersive experience tracing the memories, milestones, and grassroots movement that shaped a historic presidency, and the future it hopes to inspire. As Michelle Obama says, "It's a home away from home. And even though it has our names on it, it's all for you."
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00:00Hey! Welcome to the Obama Presidential Center.
00:03We cannot wait to have you come here and visit.
00:06It's a home away from home, and even though it has our names on it, it's all for you.
00:11So take care of it.
00:13We were given an unrestricted look inside the brand-new Obama Presidential Center before its public opening.
00:18Most presidential libraries are built as static monuments, but this is different.
00:24The 19.3-acre Chicago campus is dynamic and interactive.
00:28The 225-foot-tall museum tower, inspired by four hands coming together, is the centerpiece,
00:35housing the traditional Oval Office replica in a collection of Michelle Obama's most iconic dresses.
00:40But beyond the tower, this campus is built for people to actually use.
00:44It includes a fruit and vegetable garden, 28 commissioned works of art, a one-and-a-quarter-acre playground,
00:50a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, and a 60,000-square-foot athletic and event space.
00:56You might be surprised to see a regulation basketball court at a Presidential Center,
01:02but you'd be even more surprised if you didn't see one at President Obama's Presidential Center.
01:07We've heard from every NBA team, every WNBA team, that they want this to be their practice court
01:13when they come and visit the city of Chicago and lose to the Sky or the Bulls.
01:19When Mrs. Obama was a kid, she didn't get to have a sledding hill.
01:23And so when we built this place, she told the team to build the greatest sledding hill for the kids
01:29of the South Side.
01:30Everyone is welcome here. Just one pro tip.
01:33Do not steal your lunch trays and try to come down this hill. Some lessons are learned the hard way.
01:39Many of the features within the campus have a personal story behind them.
01:43The Charcoal Grills were inspired by President Obama's memories of Chicago Parks.
01:47And the restaurant, Tafari's Kitchen, is named in honor of the late Tafari Campbell,
01:52the Obama family's longtime personal chef.
01:57I'm a kid from the South Side of Chicago. I grew up in a community called Inglewood.
02:02Being a chef is one thing, but being selected by President Obama is crazy.
02:07So when we decided to come up with the menu, you know, everything had to be approved by President Obama.
02:12This is Mrs. Obama's mother's dish. Rice with peppers and onions and garlic, smoked sausage, pork bacon, sautéed shrimp.
02:20President Obama, he tasted it. He said, it's good. It's not hers, but it's definitely good.
02:24Food, like music, is closely tied to memory.
02:27And I think that the thing that we like to talk about the most is how food makes you feel.
02:32We say that medicine doesn't start at the doctor's office. It actually starts at the kitchen table.
02:37Having the Obama Center located right here on the South Side is so personal for me.
02:41I grew up on the South Side of Chicago.
02:43This is where Michelle Obama grew up, where President Obama entered Chicago from the skyway
02:48when he came here to be a community organizer.
02:50And it was important to us to have this vista facing both South and West because this is a part
02:56of their home.
02:57Welcome to the West Side View. Specifically, we're looking at the University of Chicago's campus.
03:02President Obama taught in the law school. Michelle Obama worked both at the university and the medical center.
03:08Sasha and Malia were born at the University of Chicago Medical Center and attended the University of Chicago laboratory schools.
03:14I think it's important that people appreciate that this is not a time capsule that just simply captures President Obama's
03:20time in office.
03:21It is really set in the context of history. We begin with the Declaration of Independence.
03:26The end of slavery. Reconstruction. The suffrage movement. The civil rights movement.
03:31All of the different building blocks that led him to be elected president of the United States.
03:37While this is a presidential center and we tell the story of the nation's 44th president, we're really mindful that
03:43he began work as a community organizer.
03:45And so we wanted to lift up the voices of the volunteers who made his election possible.
03:50We have this remarkable display of 2008 campaign ephemera. We have a series of 440 campaign buttons that speak to
04:00every possible Obama affinity or affiliation group.
04:04There are many handmade pieces. They were donated to us by people from across the country and around the world.
04:10And it really speaks to the spirit of that grassroots movement and the people who believed that change was possible
04:15in 2008.
04:17Yes, we can. Thank you, New Hampshire. Thank you.
04:23Beginning very early in the presidential campaign, people started giving President Obama keepsakes, little trinkets.
04:30I remember one in particular the gentleman named Earl Smith gave him when we were in Austin, Texas.
04:35And it was a patch from his military uniform. And Earl said, I want you to carry this with you
04:40so it will give you strength.
04:41I said to President Obama, how did that make you feel when he gave you this important trinket?
04:45And he said, I put it in my pocket. And I said, what do you mean you put it in
04:48your pocket?
04:49And he pulled out an assortment of trinkets just like the ones we have in this display case.
04:53And he told me the story behind every single one who gave it to him, the circumstances of the gift,
04:59and why it was so special that he wanted to keep it in his pocket.
05:02And to this day, every morning when he gets up, he looks at a big tray full of trinkets and
05:07he picks out the ones that he thinks will give him that little extra bit of inspiration.
05:13The next level we jokingly refer to as the palate cleanser. Visitors have gone through all of this very content
05:19rich information.
05:21And then they get to see the really wonderful events of the Obama White House.
05:25One of the perhaps show-stopping displays that we have here in the museum is this wonderful collection of Mrs.
05:31Obama's dresses.
05:33We begin with the Narciso Rodriguez dress that she wore on election night in Grant Park.
05:39And we see it in relationship to the beautiful Isabel Toledo ensemble that Mrs. Obama wore for the first inauguration
05:46in 2009.
05:47For visitors to the center, they'll see these remarkable bronze sculptures of President and Mrs. Obama.
05:53It's a snapshot from them walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.
05:56So they see this ensemble literally cast in bronze.
06:00We were very mindful of showing the way in which Mrs. Obama wore a mix of designers,
06:05many of them emerging designers, diverse designers, but also again that mix of high and low.
06:11Here we have the Target Morona dress that she wore on numerous occasions, sometimes with accessories.
06:17But also in juxtaposition to this beautiful gown by Tom Ford.
06:21It's an ivory-colored gown that she wore to Buckingham Palace.
06:24And then at the very end of the case, we have the dress that is often referred to as the
06:28Millie dress,
06:29designed by Michelle Smith, which is featured in Amy Sherrill's portrait of Mrs. Obama for the National Portrait Gallery.
06:36So it's become iconic in its own way.
06:40If I only had 30 seconds with a visitor, I would probably tell them to see the replica of the
06:46Oval Office.
06:46So I had the privilege of serving in President Obama's White House for all eight years.
06:51I want to show you something pretty special.
06:53So when you open the drawer, there is a copy of the letter that President Bush left for President Obama.
07:01It is our tradition in our country for each president to leave his successor a letter.
07:05And this letter is so kind and so decent and so patriotic that we wanted to make sure that everybody
07:11had a chance to see it.
07:12Also on the desk is his lucky rock and a blackberry to remind everybody of what technology was like when
07:18he took office.
07:19President Obama usually sat right here in this chair.
07:21If there was a foreign head of state or the vice president, they would sit in that chair.
07:26I would sit right here.
07:28And I will say the first time I came in here after the space was completed, it was a bit
07:33surreal.
07:34And it was like a flashback 10 years to the many countless hours that I spent in this room.
07:39I remember sitting here one day when we brought in a group of dreamers.
07:43He had signed an executive order allowing people who were not born in the country but who were young to
07:48have the rights of citizenship.
07:50And I saw a couple of them do what I did my first time coming in, which is to look
07:53up at this magnificent ceiling.
07:56They still took a moment to take in this extraordinary room.
07:59Yeah, they did a good job.
08:01Looks like it's supposed to.
08:04We are in one of the hidden gems of the Obama Presidential Center.
08:08This is the 82nd branch of the Chicago Public Library.
08:12Behind me is a gorgeous mural that artist Aliza Nissenbaum made.
08:17Throughout the painting you'll see characters who are there in black and white.
08:21Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin.
08:25And I want to linger a little bit at the figure of Toni Morrison.
08:28You can see a reading to a few little children.
08:31And the little boy who's in the orange shirt is a young Barack Obama.
08:35Everyone who comes here should come to the president's reading room.
08:38There are 3,500 books of every kind of subject.
08:42There's record albums.
08:44But most of all, President Obama chose the chairs because those are the reading chairs he has in his home.
08:50And he wants everyone to be able to come immerse themselves in these wonderful books that are so meaningful to
08:56both the president and Mrs. Obama.
08:59Visitors will get a chance to see 28 original commissioned works of art by 30 artists.
09:04One of the literally impossible to miss pieces is Uprising of the Sun, an 83 foot high mural that takes
09:12up an entire wall of the museum.
09:14Art is woven throughout the center with most of the collection located in free public spaces.
09:19So in the Sky Room, up at the top, we have this incredible piece of art done by Indrus Khan.
09:24He was here forever, hand stamping them on.
09:27And they are letters and words from President Obama's speeches.
09:31And so when people look up, we hope that they feel the appreciation of the beauty of the art, but
09:35also look closely and see the words.
09:37So what we're looking at here is called City of the Big Shoulders.
09:41Mark Bradford works with salvaged materials, including endpapers.
09:47He had worked in his mother's hair salon for many years.
09:50Here you can see the remarkable train tracks that are reflected back of the history of the Great Migration.
09:57Nearly all of the art pieces at the center are accessible to the public for free.
10:02In fact, more than half of the entire $850 million campus is free and open to the public daily, including
10:09the garden and the playground.
10:11The Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden is the spiritual successor to Mrs. Obama's White House Kitchen Garden
10:17and activates the space with community engagement, educating people about healthy living, fruits and vegetables, and pollination.
10:26The garden is named after Eleanor Roosevelt, another prolific first lady who championed the idea of victory gardens,
10:33encouraging people to grow food for their own communities.
10:36I come from a long line of gardeners and farmers, and this work comes out of a core belief of
10:42mine that food is a human right.
10:44The playground is 1.25 acres of whimsical joy.
10:49But what you don't realize is happening is that you're learning about some of the native animals and plants of
10:54this area.
10:55We have a huge dragonfly. That's an endangered dragonfly that is native to the lagoon next door.
11:01We have round balls that look like yarn all jumbled up. Those are warbler's nests.
11:08We have a mallard. That's a slide for little kids.
11:12And a huge frog with a giant mouth that toddlers love to run and jump on that they could find
11:18right next door.
11:22You are America, unconstrained by habit and convention, unencumbered by what is, because you're ready to seize what ought to
11:34be.
11:34In a hundred years, I hope that when people look up and see the words about We Are America, that
11:39it strikes a chord in them,
11:40and they appreciate the call to action of continuing to do the glorious task of improving this nation of ours.
11:48This is one of my favorite cases. It begins with the marriage certificate of Obergefell, where he was able to
11:55marry in the state of Maryland,
11:56but was not recognized as a federal right.
11:59The wedding band that he wore that has inlaid inside of it the ashes of his spouse.
12:04The bow tie that he was wearing on the day that the marriage equality decision came down from the Supreme
12:09Court.
12:09And of course, that evening, we lit up the house in the rainbow.
12:12President Obama called Obergefell while he was holding a press conference outside of the Supreme Court.
12:18Obergefell put the president on a speakerphone so everyone could hear.
12:22Oh, what an extraordinary moment that was.
12:27I spent a lot of time with President Obama, his cabinet, his senior staff.
12:31One of the things that we did every day is send him 10 letters.
12:34They were representative of the 40,000 letters he received each day.
12:38One of the letters that he framed and hung in his office was from Minotoma Canfield,
12:42and she explained her story of having cancer, going into remission,
12:47and then having to choose between paying the mortgage on her mother's home or continuing her health insurance.
12:53And he framed the letter to remind him of why he was fighting so hard to pass the Affordable Care
12:59Act,
13:00so that people didn't have to choose between putting food on the table and taking care of their health.
13:05What I hope people experience when they come to the Obama Presidential Center is a really immersive participatory museum.
13:13It's about everyday people who made change possible.
13:17And so I hope the everyday visitor also recognizes their own ability to make change when they leave the museum.
13:24When we topped off the construction of the building, we all signed a beam.
13:29The construction workers, President Obama, our board of directors, and myself.
13:34Just to edge permanently in history that we played a part in this amazing, amazing campus.
13:40We wanted the center to reflect the rich diversity of the community that we're located in,
13:44because that's part of the core values that President Obama has always had.
13:48And I think that's what we've achieved.
13:50Thank you so much for joining us here at the Obama Presidential Center.
13:54Whatever you do, do not touch these.
13:57These are from our friends at the West Side B Boys.
14:00Yes, that is spelled with a Z.
14:02And if you don't like a pun, you can buzz off.
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