On its surface, the Obama Presidential Center is intended to chronicle the life and impact of former President Barack Obama and the former First Lady Michelle Obama. Its centerpiece - a striking eight-story granite tower designed (according to the architects) to resemble four hands clasped together - is filled with exhibits that chronicle the birth of the nation, follow Barack and Michelle from their childhoods in Hawaii and South Shore (respectively) to law school, community organizing, political fits and starts and eventually the White House.
But during a June 3 preview for members of the national and local media, museum director Dr. Louise Bernard said the museum was also designed and curated to show visitors something else: themselves.
"The everyday visitors see themselves reflected back," she said of the exhibits inside the museum, which include a giant display case showing hand-made tchotchkes, signs and buttons from the former President's history-making 2008 run for the White House. Obama Foundation engagement chief Michael Strautmanis told me that Chicagoans' eagerness to claim connection with the 44th President of the United States was a constant during his years-long visits to all of Chicago's 77 community areas to gather feedback on the museum.
"All of them had some story about President Obama, some experience that they had and something they wanted to make sure was in the museum," he said. And while visitors will see many of those stories and experiences reflected, especially in the module playing highlights from the former President's 2008 victory speech in Grant Park, there's still plenty that's not on display.
"We left an enormous amount on the cutting room floor," said Obama Foundation CEO and longtime family confidant Valerie Jarrett as she talked about highlights of the museum, which include a replica of the Obama Oval Office, displays of Michelle Obama's dresses and accessories as well as highlights of her initiatives as First Lady, and the dramatic eighth-floor "sky room" where people can gaze out on the South and West sides through a "text screen" made up of excerpts from the former President's speech in Selma, Alabama in 2015.
When asked what artifact from the Obamas' life was missing from the museum, Strautmanis had a quick answer.
"Tan suit."
He was talking about the tan suit the former President wore during a press conference on Syria in August of 2014 - when, it should be noted, Washington, D.C. is hot and humid on a scale that makes Chicago feel like Sedona - which touched off a slow-news-week-fueled controversy about whether the leader of the free world happened to look "Presidential" or "dignified" wearing a suit color other than black, blue or charcoal. And no, the suit is not on display; Jarrett said the President gave the suit away, and sourcing a replica would not be authentic.
Everyone can certainly point to moments in the 12 years since that sartorial controversy which signal how much things have changed in American political discourse, but it's hard to see Tan-Suit-Gate through a 2026 lens as anything other than "quaint."
The museum's grand opening is set for June 19.
