A President's Emotional Connection
Barack Obama Shares Emotional Moment with Letter Writer During Presidential Center Opening
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Barack Obama got emotional during an interview at the newly opened Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when a 24-year-old woman named Emily Smith sent him a video message. Smith first wrote to Obama at age seven, telling him about her mother's death from cancer and her mother's pride in voting for him. Nearly 17 years later, her update brought the former president to tears. NBC News captured the moment on camera.
The Obama Presidential Center officially opened to the public on June 19, 2026 — Juneteenth — in Chicago's Jackson Park on the South Side. The $850 million campus, funded entirely through private donations, has been in the works for more than a decade, NBC Philadelphia reported.
A 7-Year-Old's Letter Becomes a 24-Year-Old's Legacy
In 2008, seven-year-old Emily Smith wrote to President-elect Obama from Rhode Island. She told him her mother had died of cancer — and that her mother was proud to have voted for him. It was one of roughly 40,000 letters Obama received each day during his presidency, NBC New York reported. He made a point to read ten letters every night, a program the museum now highlights as a key part of his story.
Ahead of the center's opening, Obama sat down with NBC anchor Craig Melvin for an interview at the site. During the interview, a video from Smith — now 24, a registered nurse living in New York — was played for him. In it, she said: "I feel a lot of emotions... peace and pride knowing that my mother's legacy continues to live on at the Obama Presidential Center." Obama was visibly moved watching her words.
Chicago's South Side Gets a $850 Million Landmark
The Obama Presidential Center sits on 19.3 acres in Jackson Park, a historic green space designed in 1871. The campus features a 225-foot-tall museum tower, a public library branch, a public forum space, and gardens — all open to the community. More than half the campus, including a basketball court and the library, is free. Museum admission costs $30 for adults, the highest of any presidential museum in the country, PBS News noted.
The dedication ceremony on June 18, 2026, brought together Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, and a host of public figures. Obama said at the ceremony: "This center could not be any place else... it's an expression of thanks." The City of Chicago projects the center will generate $3.1 billion in economic impact over its first decade and create 5,000 jobs, NBC Los Angeles reported.
A New Kind of Presidential Library — Fully Digital
Unlike the 13 other presidential libraries run by the National Archives, the Obama Presidential Center does not store physical documents on-site. Instead, it is the first fully digital presidential library. Obama's physical papers are kept at a separate government facility. The center focuses on civic storytelling and community events rather than housing historical records, according to NBC San Diego.
The museum's architects designed the 225-foot tower to represent "four hands coming together." The center is projected to draw up to 1 million visitors to the campus each year, with 600,000 to 700,000 entering the museum itself. It also features 28 commissioned art works from 30 artists and a reading room stocked with 3,500 book titles personally chosen by the Obamas, PBS News reported.
Pride and Debate Surround the Center's Opening
The center has drawn both praise and pushback. Some architecture critics have called the stone tower "brutalist" and even nicknamed it the "Obamalisk," according to The Guardian. Others, including local Chicago critics, have given it "unqualified raves," saying it brings a world-class landmark to a historically underinvested part of the city.
Community advocates have raised concerns about rising rents in nearby Woodlawn and South Shore neighborhoods — a sign of possible gentrification linked to the center's arrival. A legal group called Protect Our Parks spent years in court arguing the center wrongly takes public parkland for a private use. Despite those fights, the center opened on schedule, with the Obama Foundation calling it a "global home for civic participation," NBC Connecticut reported.
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