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Is Obama Library a Goodbye Gift to Chicago from the President?

By Mark Konkol | May 13, 2015 5:41am | Updated on May 13, 2015 8:51am
 Barack Obama transformed himself from a pot-smoking slacker in Hawaii to a New York City intellectual to a political powerhouse in Chicago and a confident two-term president in the White House.
Barack Obama transformed himself from a pot-smoking slacker in Hawaii to a New York City intellectual to a political powerhouse in Chicago and a confident two-term president in the White House.
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Getty Images; BlackAmericans.com

HYDE PARK — It wasn’t much of a surprise that Barack Obama decided his presidential library belongs in Chicago.

After all, this is the city where the president, to use his own words, “really became a man.”

“All the strands of my life came together,” Obama said in the touching video formally announcing Chicago as the home city for the library and his foundation.

“That’s where I was able to apply that early idealism to try to work in communities in public service. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where my children were born. The people there, the community, the lessons that I learned. They’re all based right in this few square miles where we’ll be able to now give something back and bring the world back home after this incredible journey.”

Indeed, everything about Obama’s rise from community organizer in Roseland to U.S. Senator — that moment when U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin first urged him to run for president in the Union League Club parlor and the historic gathering in Grant Park where he emerged as America’s first black president — happened the Chicago Way.

The gift of the presidential library — and the Pullman National Monument, for that matter — forever will be evidence of how much Obama cared about our divided city — the wealthy and downtrodden parts alike — that rather uncharacteristically embraced him, an outsider, as one of its own and made him better for it.

And there’s no bigger thank you a president can give than the gift of his presidential library.

But it some ways, the library designation also might be the kindest way to say goodbye to the town he proudly calls home above all others.

The Obamas may live in Washington D.C. until their youngest daughter finishes high school, buy themselves a house in Hawaii or find a place in New York City to call home, according to conflicting news reports.

So in 2017, we shouldn’t expect to see the former president casually slipping into Valois for a quick breakfast on a slow Wednesday morning, or to catch a glimpse of First Lady Michelle Obama pushing a cart down the aisles of her favorite Target store on Clark and Roosevelt.

Like Michael Jordan or Tina Fey and so many other Chicago success stories, our city could only hold on to Obama for so long — and it’s no fault of our own.

While the strands of President Obama’s life may have come together on the South Side, those were fleeting moments in the life of an ambitious man whose journey to the White House involved travel from town to town and reinventing himself every stop on the way.

Growing up in Hawaii, Obama — his pals called him “Barry” — was what his mother called a “goof-off.” He didn’t apply himself much. He hung around with a group of friends who called themselves “choom gang” and smoked marijuana together.  

 Candidate for the U.S. Senate Barack Obama (D-IL) sits with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha (L) and Malia (R) in a hotel room as they wait for election returns to come in November 2, 2004 in Chicago. Obama is expected to win easily against the Republican candidate Alan Keyes.
Candidate for the U.S. Senate Barack Obama (D-IL) sits with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha (L) and Malia (R) in a hotel room as they wait for election returns to come in November 2, 2004 in Chicago. Obama is expected to win easily against the Republican candidate Alan Keyes.
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Scott Olson/Getty Images

"It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time,'” Obama told a group of New Hampshire high school students while running for president in 2007.

He decided that he needed to “grow up.”

Later, beginning at Occidental College in California, Obama shed his nickname and reverted to his birth name, Barack — his father’s name.

It was as a way to connect to “something bigger then myself” and “grow up,” he told Newsweek in 2008.

At Columbia University, he became a New York City intellectual, dabbled in social justice movements — protesting New York City’s mass transit system conditions.

Then he moved to Chicago, where would stay for long enough to slowly transform himself into the underdog presidential candidate who shocked the world.

Despite our city’s fondness for Obama, it’s time for Chicagoans to prepare ourselves to let him go so when the time comes we won’t feel abandoned and brokenhearted.

Surely, he'll come back to visit and work with his foundation, which will be based on the South Side.

But ultimately, Chicago was just an important stop on the journey of a man who transformed himself from “Barry” to “Barack” to “Mr. President” that will likely take him from the White House to someplace else where he will probably reinvent himself yet again.

So after Obama moves on, we should think of the presidential library as a reminder — for our city and the President, himself — that if it wasn’t for Chicago, he might have ended up a single, childless, pot-smoking, idealistic New York City intellectual.

And for that, we should all be grateful.

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