Free Republic

There was a crooked man and he had a crooked smile he had a crooked legend and he built a crooked house

The project was sold to the community – despite massive opposition from all sides, originally – as a huge influx of construction jobs for the community. When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a building project, that money doesn’t all go to an architect; the vast majority gets spread around among small businesses, employing building materials vendors and plumbers, drywallers and carpenters, electricians and glaziers, carpet layers and escalator installers. This should have been a godsend for the area; it simply wasn’t. According to the African American Contractors Association, there’s a long list of such small businesses who...

Pastor Jeffery Campbell has deep ties to Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. He was raised in the South Side neighborhood, and has served as pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church for 22 years. And for the past decade, he’s attempted to protect its residents from displacement and gentrification. He’s seen rising rents, residents squeezed by university development and life becoming more unaffordable. Now, there’s a new challenge: the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center – part of a 19-acre, $850m campus – that has transformed life in the neighborhood, as well as the adjacent South Shore and Hyde Park, long before this...

As of the latest available information, the Obama Presidential Center campus in Chicago has not yet displayed the American flag outside. Multiple reports from June 2026 note that while the center is designed to reflect American values and history, there is currently no visible American flag on display, and some visitors have not even spotted flagpoles on the property The center, which opened to the public on June 19, 2026, is a 19.3‑acre campus combining a museum, library, community spaces, and a Chicago Public Library branch Wikipedia+1. It is intended to be a public space that embodies American heritage, but...

The Obama Presidential Center was billed as a lasting legacy to former President Barack Obama, and its construction was touted as an ambitious model built with aggressive goals for minority-owned and local businesses. But now, some of the very subcontractors who helped build the 19.3-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side say they are facing financial ruin as they race to recover millions of dollars they claim remain unpaid ahead of the center's grand opening Friday. Overall construction costs were reported to be $830 million in 2021, and have likely climbed past the $1 billion mark. A Fox News Digital investigation...

CHICAGO - The Obama Foundation has assembled a star-studded lineup of musicians and entertainers for the grand opening ceremony of the Obama Presidential Center on Thursday. What we know: The Obama Foundation on Tuesday announced the performers who will take part in the presidential center's grand opening celebration at John Lewis Plaza. According to the foundation, the event will bring together global leaders, artists, changemakers and community members to celebrate the values that shaped former President Barack Obama's administration and continue to inspire civic engagement across generations. Scheduled performers include: The Roots, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Common, Eddie Vedder, Jennifer...

After building an ugly, overprice, monstrosity marring the design of a famous Chicago park, anybody surprised to learn that the Obama Presidential Center has failed to pay the help? Multiple little-guy contractors have told Fox News that they've been stiffed on the payments for their goods and services. (snip) Salaries and benefits soared from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, as staffing expanded to 337 employees and annual revenue reached nearly $210 million. But the little guy who smooths the cement or does the gardening or catering or windows and floors gets nothing, and as the video...

CHICAGO — The Obama Presidential Center has opened the application process to fill 150 full-time positions in anticipation of the campus opening later this year in the Jackson Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Available positions span multiple departments, including custodial, security officer, facility management, visitor engagement, visitor services, curatorial assistant, grounds keeping and others. The Obama Foundation offers competitive wages and benefits. The foundation is prioritizing the hiring of Chicago residents. To help identify and recruit local residents for the new roles, the foundation has launched a partnership with four community-based organizations, including Cara Collective, North Lawndale Employment Network,...