STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Today, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago opens its doors to the public.
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BARACK OBAMA: I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
That is former President Barack Obama speaking Thursday at a dedication ceremony that evoked a different era in American politics.
INSKEEP: NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith covered the Obama presidency and is in Chicago having had a look at the center. Tam, good morning.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What was Obama trying to say?
KEITH: He was saying a lot. But I think, distilled, his message was about hope and change and the idea that the division and anger that dominates politics now doesn't have to be irreversible. All of the living former presidents were there, but not the current president, Donald Trump. He wasn't invited. And there's this thing that happens when Obama and Clinton and Biden and Bush are all together in one place.
When they talk about the American idea and democratic ideals, it reads as an implicit criticism of Trump and his approach to the presidency and his view of the country. Former first lady Michelle Obama also spoke, and she was not entirely subtle in her remarks. At this point in the clip I'm going to play, she is both bragging on her husband and then delivering a left jab.
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MICHELLE OBAMA: You were doing the people's work - rescuing our economy, expanding health care, ending a war, ordering the bin Laden raid, saving an auto industry, winning a Peace Prize.
(CHEERING)
KEITH: And that laughter slowly grew and drew this audible belly laugh from former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton.
INSKEEP: Tam, I can't help but notice another contrast. The United States is trying to pull together some July 4 celebrations. The Trump administration announced this concert, and a bunch of the acts seem to have withdrawn from it. But the Obamas seem not to have had any trouble getting people together for this library celebration.
KEITH: Indeed, they had no trouble at all. By the end of the event, when Stevie Wonder was up onstage with The Roots, Jennifer Hudson, Common, John Legend, Eddie Vedder, Bono, Bruce Springsteen - others I'm probably forgetting - all singing "Higher Ground," it felt like being at the Grammys more than being at some...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
KEITH: ...Stuffy, old presidential library dedication. About that museum, I got a chance to visit the center and walk through it earlier this month. And it really does, like that concert event, capture the vibes of the Obama years, as if the past decade never happened. But Obama said he doesn't see it as a time capsule.
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B OBAMA: The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy, bygone era, some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, oh, we miss you, Barack.
KEITH: He said he wants to remind visitors of what's possible.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk about the museum itself and how the story is told. I mean, I do remember in 2008, when Obama was elected, even many people who opposed him said this is a momentous, a very moving moment in American history. But I also remember America being deeply divided then, also, over Obama. So how are they crafting this story as they tell it now?
KEITH: The museum does not start with Obama's birth in Hawaii. It starts with the Declaration of Independence. And the museum places the Obamas in that long arc of history that the former president often talks about. It includes triumphs and some failures and leaves open the idea that Obama's legacy hasn't fully been written yet but may well be determined by what comes next.
INSKEEP: NPR's Tamara Keith in Chicago. Thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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