Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

The Obama Presidential Center Will Displace Black People
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
13 Oct 2021
The Obama Presidential Center Will Displace Black People
The Obama Presidential Center Will Displace Black People

The Obama Presidential Center will inevitably displace a working class Black community in Chicago. The center is in keeping with Obama's history of doing the bidding of the powerful, including accelerating gentrification.

The soon to be constructed Barack Obama Presidential Center poses a great danger to the surrounding Black neighborhoods on the South Shore of Chicago. In fact, thanks to this $500 million, 19-acre homage to the 44th president, there may not be any Black people living there much longer.

Families are already facing rent increases and homes that were once moderately priced are now unaffordable to Black working people. These market manipulations are integral to the gentrification model of urban development. The end result is always a displaced and dispersed Black population.

This crisis is but the latest Obama slap in the face to the people who loved him the most. His 2008 presidential campaign stump speeches were replete with the worst stereotypes about Black men. Who can forget his not very funny jokes about the imagined Cousin Pookie who wouldn’t get off the couch to vote. Obama avoided any mentions of Black people and their unique status with canned lines about rising tides lifting all the boats.

Of course the intent was to disappear Black people as a group and therefore make himself more palatable to white people. In his maiden speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention he declared, “There is no white America. There is no Black America.” He showed his hand early on and no one should have been surprised when he disappeared the needs of the Democratic Party’s most reliable voting block in order to gain political advantage.

Construction of the enormous facility will not be the first time that Black people lost homes and money because of Obama. The Peoples Policy Project reported how federal inaction during the housing bubble collapse was especially damaging to this group. The Obama administration did not take the steps necessary to end foreclosures, in fact his Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) accelerated foreclosures by aiding the banks more than homeowners. The crooks who enabled the crash got away and struggling workers got the shaft.

The tragedy is that these failures of policy did little to diminish Obama’s luster with Black people. He could do no wrong, regardless of the damage that he created domestically or internationally. The code of silence did nothing to help his enablers. The foreclosure crisis pushed vulnerable people over the edge to loss of property and loss of wealth. Homeownership has traditionally been the main source of wealth for Black people and losing it has devastating consequences.

Renters will also suffer. The state of Illinois does not have laws limiting rent increases. . Landlords in the area are already raising rents in anticipation of the coming changes. In typical Obama fashion, an inadequate community benefits agreement was hastily drawn up. It provides for low-income housing in one small area of the community, but leaves others untouched.

Yet there is still a reservoir of support for the man who did so little to benefit Black people and a naive belief that he has their interests in mind. As one community resident said, “This is the community that sent President Obama to Springfield. This is the community that sent him to the Senate. This is the community that sent him to the White House, and we should be the community that gets to stay for the presidential center.”
The points are valid but they are of no importance to Barack Obama or to the people who have funded his vanity project to the tune of $500 million. Funders include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros Open Society Foundation, and corporations like AT&T and Boeing. 

None of them grew rich because they cared about the needs of working people anywhere in the country and those who risk being forced out of their neighborhood are not exceptional in their eyes.

Barack Obama is leveraging his connections to the rich people and the corporate interests who made him a United States senator and then president. He worked on their behalf and in return they help to build a modern day cathedral where he can be worshipped and dispense patronage as he sees fit. That is what former heads of state do after all. They are errand boys and girls for the international 1% and they live happy and wealthy lives thereafter.

The South Shore residents must be disabused of any notion that their needs count to Obama or his benefactors. The center is not being built for them. They are literally in the way of the developers who now have another neighborhood where they can manipulate the market and grow richer.

Everyone in this sordid drama is doing what they always do. It is the people who want to stay in their homes who must behave differently. They are under the misapprehension that they can rely on good will where there is none to be had.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . Her work can also be found at patreon.com/margaretkimberley  and on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

gentrification
Barack Obama
Black Displacement
Neoliberalism

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Obama and Black America
Kevin Alexander Gray
Obama and Black America
15 March 2023
Kevin Alexander Gray analyzed Barack Obama's presidential election and its negative impact on Black people and their politics. 
For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
09 November 2022
The 50 year old neo-liberal agenda explains why political choices in this country provide little change that benefits the masses of people.
Chocolate City: Ground Zero for the White Settler's Reclamation Project
Jon Jeter
Chocolate City: Ground Zero for the White Settler's Reclamation Project
12 October 2022
Washington DC was once known as Chocolate City. After years of gentrification Black residents are now a minority of the population.
The City Has Failed University City Townhome Residents. They Should Pay For It — Literally
Ernest Owens
The City Has Failed University City Townhome Residents. They Should Pay For It — Literally
17 August 2022
The traumatizing clearing of the University City Townhome encampment in West Philadelphia symbolizes the ongoing racial injustice of gentrifica
Obama and Liberals Killed Abortion Rights
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Obama and Liberals Killed Abortion Rights
11 May 2022
The revelation that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the Roe v.
Black Political Distraction
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Black Political Distraction
06 April 2022
Having a new Black SCOTUS justice or bringing Barack Obama out of retirement for a photo opportunity won't raise Joe Biden's poll numbers or st
Biden is No FDR  and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Biden is No FDR and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
27 October 2021
The idea that Joe Biden is the "most progressive president since FDR" is a propaganda device meant to quiet the Democratic Party left and force
The Many Crimes of Colin Powell
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Many Crimes of Colin Powell
20 October 2021
Colin Powell's death is an opportunity to question the inclination to respect the Black face in a high place.
Build Back Better Legislation: New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt?
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Build Back Better Legislation: New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt?
13 October 2021
Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
“Our democracy:” Dictatorship of death merchants in bipartisan Brooks Brothers suits…
06 October 2021

More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio March 24, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio March 24, 2023
    24 Mar 2023
    In this segment, we learn why Atlanta is the site of the planned Cop City police training facility in what purports to be a Black mecca
  • Ray McGovern Connects Anniversary of Iraq Invasion and Ukraine Proxy War - Part 1
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ray McGovern Connects Anniversary of Iraq Invasion and Ukraine Proxy War - Part 1
    24 Mar 2023
    Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush.
  • How Atlanta Politics Led to Cop City
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    How Atlanta Politics Led to Cop City
    24 Mar 2023
    Tea Troutman is a community organizer, urbanist, and cultural critic from Atlanta, Georgia. They are currently a Ph.D. student in Geography at the University of Minnesota working on a dissertation…
  • Biden Continues Punitive Immigration Policies - Part 1
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Biden Continues Punitive Immigration Policies - Part 1
    24 Mar 2023
    Aly Wane is on the advisory board of the Immigrant Justice Network. He joins us from Syracuse, New York to discuss Biden administration immigration policy and its similarities with that of Trump and…
  • Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet
    22 Mar 2023
    Iraq and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us