Obama's Rocky Return

What worries South Side activists about the former President’s legacy project

- Maya Rhodan/Chicago

KYANA BUTLER HAS MIXED FEELINGS about the Obama Presidential Center. The sprawling campus that will serve as a monument to the 44th President’s legacy is being built in her neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, and as hopeful as she is about what the development could mean for her community, she is equally anxious about what it could do to local residents. Butler’s apartment is just a few blocks away from the proposed site in Jackson Park. Shortly after plans for the center were unveiled, she says, her rent went up by nearly $100, from $536 to $635 per month. She worries that the increase is a sign that a wave of gentrification will sweep through the neighborhood, displacing residents in favor of monied newcomers.

Butler is not alone in her apprehension. Since Chicago won the multicity competition for the center in 2015, celebrations have given way to recriminations as details of the proposal have come to light. Community organizers have clashed with city leaders and wealthy sponsors over who will benefit from the project. Conservationists balked at the proposal to plant the center on the edge of a public park, only to be steamrollered after the city easily approved construction in midMay. Barack Obama himself rebuffed concerns about gentrification at a community meeting last fall. Now a last major battle is being led by a coalition of organizers, including Butler, who want the city of Chicago and the Obama Foundation to codify housing and employment protections for residents of the center’s surrounding neighborhoods, who skew African-American and working-class.