As the U.S. marked Juneteenth, former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama welcomed the first visitors to the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side—tying the holiday’s message of liberation to a moment of renewed national debate over racial pr
People gathered across the United States for Juneteenth on Friday. but in Chicago the celebration carried a different kind of weight: former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama welcomed the first visitors to his presidential center as it opened to the public for the first time.
The center sits on a sprawling campus on the South Side. built to honor the nation’s first Black president and designed to push visitors to consider the change they want to see in their own communities. The opening landed on a holiday that marks June 19. 1865. when Union troops arrived in Galveston. Texas. with an order declaring the state’s enslaved people to be free with “absolute equality.” It came after more than two years had passed since the Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people’s freedom.
“Juneteenth represents not just a commemoration of the end of slavery but it’s also part of the ongoing struggle for absolute equality and that ideal in American life,” said W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University professor and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Sweet Taste of Liberty.”
The grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center followed Thursday’s star-studded dedication ceremony. On Friday, Obama and Michelle Obama greeted visitors and also read to children who had gathered at the site.
Tyrone Sturgis, 62, said the timing made the day feel extraordinary.
“For this center to open on Juneteenth, on the South Side of Chicago, it’s extraordinary, it’s awesome,” he said.
The center’s nearly 20-acre campus includes a museum with a life-sized replica of the Oval Office. a garden designed by Michelle Obama complete with lettuce and strawberry plants. a professional-grade basketball court. a picnic area with grills. and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library. Visitors can also experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits that span Obama’s campaigns. key moments of his presidency. and life at the White House.
Organizers say the spaces are built to bring people together on a campus expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually. Louise Bernard, the museum’s director, has said they are “inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large.”
Even as Juneteenth is widely marked. the public opening arrives as Americans wrestle with a charged political moment and with renewed questions about the arc of racial progress. The piece also points to a major shift in the national landscape: the Supreme Court hollowed out the Voting Rights Act. endangering Black political representation in Congress.
The sequence of events feels deliberate, even if it is not spelled out that way—an opening meant to invite contemplation, set on a date rooted in delayed freedom, coming as the country debates who can access power.
Juneteenth’s federal recognition is new, but its meaning goes much further back. The holiday is the fifth year since Juneteenth was designated as a federal holiday by former President Joe Biden. who served as Obama’s vice president. Celebrations began in Texas and spread across the country, carrying a long history in Black America.
The holiday’s name comes from a combination of “June” and “nineteenth,” marking the day when U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Texas port city with the declaration of freedom in General Order No. 3. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the Confederacy’s still-rebellious states. declaring freedom for “all persons held as slaves. ” but for many it did not mean immediate freedom—rather. it was a promise of liberation that would come with a Union victory.
“It really required the force of arms and the success of U.S. armies to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation,” McDaniel said.
Around six months after Granger’s arrival in Galveston, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery nationwide was ratified.
Across the U.S. this year, cities marked the day with their own traditions. In Galveston. a daylong gathering included music and fireworks. a worship service in a historic Black church. and a parade with brass bands that brought out families who braved temperatures in the 80s. After the parade ended, those attending were invited to join a community picnic.
Nearby Houston held a lineup of musical artists and a domino tournament at Emancipation Park, which was established in 1872 by a group of formerly enslaved men.
Hundreds of other cities also announced events over the long weekend, including a parade in Atlanta, a bike ride in Los Angeles, and a festival on Martha’s Vineyard. People gathered for community projects too, including a group of schoolchildren in Vermont.
Several cities are hosting walks named for Opal Lee. the Texas woman who pushed for years to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Participants will walk 2 1/2 miles to symbolize the 2 1/2 years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to be enforced in Texas. Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” turns 100 this year.
The holiday’s roots in Texas carry their own reminders of what came after liberation. Black Texans embraced Granger’s arrival as a day for celebration even as the Ku Klux Klan was established in Texas by 1868. By the 1880s. McDaniel said. “it was difficult to find a significant community in Texas where it wasn’t being marked by African Americans.”.
“They made it a community celebration, they made it a celebration of not only freedom but also a demonstration of community empowerment and institution-building,” he added.
Corey D.B. Walker, dean of Wake Forest University’s divinity school, said the holiday offers a way to recognize the nation’s “complex history” and what it means to be a U.S. citizen—especially as the President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to undermine the retelling of Black history.
“I think it really reminds people the importance of understanding a fuller, more robust portrait of our nation’s history and the many contributions of many individuals who have contributed to America’s experiment with democracy,” Walker said.
Juneteenth Obama Presidential Center Chicago South Side Barack Obama Michelle Obama Gordon Granger Voting Rights Act Opal Lee Ku Klux Klan Emancipation Proclamation