After more than a decade in the making, the Obama Presidential Center has opened its doors. To mark the occasion, former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama sat down with MS NOW’s Michele Norris to talk about the stories that helped inspire the center, their legacy and how they believe “America will see itself” reflected throughout the sprawling 19-acre campus in Chicago’s South Side.

While the former president told Norris the construction of the center was a “long journey,” he said that throughout the process, he and the former first lady had a consistent vision of what they hoped to “accomplish,” one that started with its location, which he described as the “epicenter” of his life in Chicago: the South Side.

“Michelle and I had a very clear sense that we wanted this to be a place that would attract visitors from around the world, that would record what happened during my presidency, but, that more than anything, was a vital, alive, dynamic place for the South Side of Chicago and the city of Chicago,” he said.

“We are home,” Michelle Obama told Norris, speaking from inside the center’s reading room. The former first lady, who was born and raised in Chicago’s South Side, said that during her childhood, she could not imagine having access to anything like the presidential center, which includes 28 commissioned art installations scattered throughout the campus.

“In order to do or see or experience anything beyond what you knew, you had to get on a bus or pay for parking or take the L and go to a whole other community to experience beautiful parks and to really enjoy the lake and to see art and to see culture,” she said. 

Michelle Obama said she hoped the $850 million investment would mean children wouldn’t have to travel far to gain such perspective. “I think about what it’ll mean to kids like me,” she said. “This is something that Barack and I talked about. This is why the artwork at the presidential center is as important as the archives. Because it was important for me that kids like me could be right in their neighborhood and see world-class art.”

The Obamas also responded to concern from some who feared the center could have a negative impact on the surrounding community, and lead to displacement and rent hikes.

“The question is always from our perspective, are we making sure that the people who are already there can get a piece of that rising tide?” Barack Obama told Norris, noting that one of his team’s “biggest priorities” was making sure members of the local community could “not just apply for jobs but actually get jobs and get trained for jobs.”

The former president said that he hoped that over time the center would become “the kind of community improvement that is not just bringing in people from the outside but also lifting up folks from the inside,” adding, “that’s our hope.”

The pair discussed the long journey and the work that went into conceptualizing, planning and building such a sprawling complex. While Michelle Obama said she was involved, she stressed to Norris that she “wanted this to be Barack’s show.”

In fact, the former first lady said she had not seen the finished project until just a few days ago. During her tour, she told Norris she became emotional while watching a particular video in one exhibit that captured the crowd’s reaction in Grant Park to her husband’s historic win in 2008.

Since she and her family were preparing for Barack Obama’s victory speech, she said she “never had a chance to see the reaction, in all these years.” 

“It was really the first time I saw accounts of the emotion people felt [when the race was called]. I’d never experienced that,” she said. 

While the Obama Presidential Center Museum will tell the story of the former president’s journey to the White House, he told Norris he believed it was important to “ground” what happened during his presidency in the “broader sweep of American history.”

“Frankly, I would probably have had even less of me,” he said. “Maybe this is the academic in me that’s more interested in folks getting a sense of history more broadly. And my presidency is just a chapter in that.”

The former president said reflecting on the country’s “complicated” history was perhaps more important now than ever, dismissing an idea he said was being pushed by “the right” and “the Trump administration,” that “any suggestion or criticism that America was anything other than perfect is unpatriotic.”

“I think it’s possible to celebrate the founders and appreciate what they did, as well as look objectively and critically at how their values strayed very far from what they professed,” he argued. “I think when you understand the complexities of America and the contradictions of America, I don’t think it makes you love it less. I think it makes you love it more.”

He told Norris he believed taking that kind of approach made you more “resilient” during “periods like we’re in now,” where many feel “despair” and “anger.”

Adding: “That perspective allows you to then say, ‘OK, we’ve gone through crazy periods like this before.’ … It fortifies you to say that, yes, this has been part of the journey that we’re on, and there’s no reason to suggest that we can’t get through this one either.”

That message of hope and unity was also present in what Michelle Obama told Norris she hoped visitors would take away from their time at the center. 

“What will resonate for people of all backgrounds is they will see themselves in these floors — America will see itself,” she said. “And I’m saying all of America, regardless of political party, regardless of whether you voted for us, or like us, or have nasty things to say about us, or not, or love us. You will walk through these halls and you will feel seen here.”

Highlighting the voices of everyday Americans was a key focus of the Obamas during the center’s conceptualization, including in what the former president described as his favorite exhibit: a showcase of some letters he received from the American people during his time in office, located outside a replica of his Oval Office in the center’s museum.

He told Norris that the exhibit included a short video, which he said left him “choked up,” highlighting some of the stories shared in those letters. “It’s a mother talking about, you know, ‘Mr. President, I’m struggling.’ And it’s a vet, you know, who’s still trying to find his path after he’s no longer serving,” he said. “People are really raw in their emotions in some of these letters, partly because they don’t expect the president’s actually going to read it. It’s almost like a meditation for them — a way of getting stuff off their chest.”

During their visit, the former president urged visitors at the center to stop to read those letters and listen to those stories. “Take the time to watch that,” he said. “‘Cause I think that as much as anything captures what I always hoped the spirit of my presidency was.”

When Norris asked Obama to elaborate on what he believed that “spirit” was, the former president said he hoped his time in office showed the importance of “a sense of generosity towards each other” and “a sense of that everybody counts and everybody matters.”

“And that when we act on that basic presumption, when we extend grace to each other, when we’re willing to fight for that idea without sacrificing a recognition of the humanity of those that we’re fighting against, if we can manage that — even if it’s messy and not always perfect — then I think this country does well and the world does better,” he said.

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