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Oklahoma Republican lieutenant governor nominee T.W. Shannon criticized the opening of the Obama Center in Chicago, arguing that the project highlights concerns about voter identification, and reports of unpaid contractors.

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...

Cost to taxpayers for Obama Center keep piling up Illinois taxpayers may be on the hook for millions in unpaid contractor fees for the Obama Presidential Center as the foundation's promised $420 million "safety net" fund to prevent a taxpayer bailout has yet to materialize and many black-owned contractors are being left unpaid. Meanwhile, multiple contractors are now saying that the Obama Center hasn't paid them for millions of dollars for their work. And some are wondering if taxpayers will be forced to pay up, according to Fox News. Some of these subcontractors say they are locked in payment disputes...

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...

Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and U2's Bono and the Edge are among the music stars who will perform on Thursday at the grand opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, where the former president spent years working as a community organizer and politician. "We are bringing together some of today's most prominent voices and global icons for the Obama Presidential Center Grand Opening Ceremony," the Obama Foundation announced in a Wednesday social media post, which you can see below. "The festivities will livestream globally at 11 a.m. CT, Thursday, June 18 — don’t miss it!" Other performers helping...

Former Presidents Biden, Clinton and Bush are set to attend the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, according to a new report. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that the three presidents intend to be at a ceremony to commemorate the center’s opening, a source familiar with the event told the outlet. Former first ladies Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden will also be in attendance, per the Sun-Times. The Obama Presidential Center is set to open Thursday, with its grand opening ceremony featuring a lineup of award-winning performers. Valerie Jarett, the Obama Foundation’s chief executive, said that the event...

Former President Barack Obama's $850 million presidential library in Chicago has been plunged into a fresh controversy as contractors say they still haven't been paid just days before its grand opening. African American Contractors Association president Omar Shareef said seven workers contacted him to complaint about missed payments, Front Page Mag reports. 'It's to the point that they wished they had never done [the project],' Shareef told the outlet. Some subcontractors are missing as much as seven figures in payment, and many are feeling the pressure of keeping their businesses afloat. The 225-foot tall library dubbed the 'Obamalisk' is also...

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...

African American Contractors Association president Omar Shareef said that a total of seven separate subcontractors have contacted him for help with pursuing missing payments in the past several months. Some of the contractors are owed seven figures. They’re willing to settle for less, as long as they can keep their businesses running.

Obama, whose roots are African rather than African-American, rose to power by hijacking the racial resentments and guilty left behind in America after a history of slave and segregation he was never part of. Now, the one trick pony is at it again, announcing the opening of the grim fortress of a museum in Chicago, on ‘Juneteenth’, trying to link his time in the White House as a notable event for black people up there with the end of slavery. It’s another cynical and despicable hijacking of American history to serve his own vanity and ego. The reality, as most...

Taxpayers could be left with a big tab if the Obama Presidential Center experiences financial trouble because its foundation has not yet established a promised $470 million safety net to guard against a public bailout. That according a Fox News Digital investigation of the center’s finances as Chicago awaits its grand opening on Friday, June 19. The outlet’s investigation, published Saturday, found that “multiple contractors and subcontractors claiming losses ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions on the project, with some alleging they remain locked in payment disputes and face financial ruin…” In an agreement with the city...

The Barack Hussein Obama Library, in 10 years, when fully matured!

The Egyptians had their pyramids. The Anglo-Saxons had their barrows. And the Americans have their presidential libraries – the chief difference being that the leaders the US venerates are usually still alive at the opening. Lacking a royal family or a state religion, the US presidency has swelled to fill the void, transforming over the decades into a national personality cult, complete with its own secular temples to these powerful men. The latest pharaonic edifice is about to open on Chicago’s south side, where it looms on the skyline as a towering totem to the 44th president, Barack Obama. He...

We reported on former President Barack Obama's effort this week to pump up his presidential center, which is finally opening in June.(snip) I can't imagine there would be a lot of ordinary folks beating down the doors to visit. As we've noted, the main building is not exactly a beacon of attractiveness. It's just flat-out ugly. They're even selling a pin that's supposed to look like the building, and the pin is similarly ugly. Plus, you have to shell out $30 for the pin, which is just a gray blob of clay. One of the funniest was this necklace, which...

Former President Barack Obama’s presidential library is hocking pricey merch shaped like the unsightly Chicago tower — as the project’s architects revealed the former commander-in-chief himself was behind the “Death Star” design that’s been widely mocked since construction began. Ungainly lapel pins that “capture the silhouette” of the Obama Presidential Center are going for $30 in the online store. “The pin represents the intersection of bold design and global leadership,” the website reads, noting the proceeds go to the Obama Foundation “to inspire, empower and connect people to change their world.” Each pin is “handcrafted from unfired paper clay,” and...

On what has become known as "Star Wars" Day – as in May the Fourth be with you – actor Mark Hamill who famously portrayed Luke Skywalker in the blockbuster film has teamed with Barack Obama in two videos promoting the opening of the former president's library which many have suggested looks like the Death Star from the movie franchise. In one video titled "Hear Me," Hamill is seen using the Force to communicate with Obama, with text reading: A short time from now on the South Side of Chicago … ."

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s presidential library will be the biggest building in Miami and feature a replica of the ballroom he’s adding to the White House, his son Eric said on Monday. “It’s gonna be the tallest building in Miami, by far the best location in Miami,” he told reporters at the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll. “The piece of land is incredible and we’re really excited.” The president unveiled dramatic renderings of his forthcoming library last week showing a skyscraper towering over the Miami skyline — with the “Trump” family name illuminated near the top of the building....

Chicago residents in rent-controlled housing near a site being constructed to honor former President Barack Obama have reportedly unionized in response to the controversial project. Residents of a longtime Woodlawn apartment building organized to resist possible displacement and rent increases they say are being driven by development pressure surrounding the Obama Presidential Center. Tenants at the Chaney Braggs Apartments rallied earlier this month outside their building near 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, saying a potential sale of the property could upend the lives of families who have lived there for decades, FOX 32 Chicago reported. A California-based investor is...