By Anna Giaritelli, Washington Examiner
A panel of national and local experts, comprised mostly of African-Americans, lambasted Chicago city officials in a meeting Wednesday night for how they have worked closely with the Obama Foundation to build the Obama Presidential Center on public land despite criticism and serious concerns from representatives of the South Side neighborhood.
“You have all this talk about collusion between Trump and Russia, right? To me, that sounds like collusion between the city and the university, and we see the same thing happening in relation to this,” one of the panelists, Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, said.
University of Chicago professors, leaders in the black community, and experts on historic preservation and architecture repeatedly condemned former President Barack Obama and his organization for engaging in closed-door negotiations with the university and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s first term chief of staff, and said the Democratic leader is ignoring the historic black community’s needs.
Panelists indicated that their main gripe is the lack of representation by those overseeing the project. The speakers also listed other grievances they had with the current plan, though they agreed the center itself was not the issue, but rather how it was being rolled out.
To read the list of concerns, please visit Washington Examiner.
