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In bid for Obama’s presidential library, rival Chicago groups clash over potential sites
CHICAGO – The competition to host Barack Obama’s presidential library has set off infighting in Chicago between activists in depressed neighbourhoods and wealthy universities.
No fewer than six potential Chicago bids have emerged, each backed by different interests. The main tension is between the University of Chicago, where Obama was a constitutional law professor, and a group advocating for Bronzeville, the city’s historic centre of black culture.
Don Rose is a veteran Chicago political analyst. He says the library is “such a prize that nobody is going to yield power to anybody else.”
The squabble also puts Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, in the difficult position of trying to present a single, unified bid, lest the feuding weaken the city’s odds against rivals in New York and Hawaii.
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