Barack Obama’s presidential library will be located on the South Side of Chicago in the area where Obama lived and worked before his election to the White House.
In a YouTube video released early on Tuesday morning, Obama and his wife Michelle announced that his presidential library, which will include archives from his administration as well as a museum, would be located in Chicago. In the video, Obama touted the importance of the city in his life, saying “all the strands of my life came together, and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago.”
The city was one of three contenders for the library: New York City, where Obama attended college at Columbia, and his hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii, were also in the running. But New York will get a consolation prize. The Barack Obama Foundation, which will administer the library, will relocate its offices from Chicago to Manhattan. The library will be affiliated with the University of Chicago.
Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff, had long pushed for the library to be built in his city. Emanuel successfully prodded the city council in March to unanimously vote to allow Obama to choose between two different sites on parkland in the South Side as a location for the library.
At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Emanuel said the library will become “one of the most important cultural jewels in Chicago” and rhapsodized about it as “a place for children to learn about Chicago’s history and America’s history”.
He touched upon the difficult process his city faced in winning the competition to host the archive and museum, saying: “At times we felt like moving heaven and earth to get the president’s library in Chicago.”
Marty Nesbitt, the chair of the Barack Obama Foundation and a close friend of the president and first lady, echoed Emanuel’s excitement. After describing how Obama decided to settle in Chicago, Nesbit told reporters at the press conference: “Today it is my privilege to announce that the Obamas have once again chosen Chicago as future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center.”
