Our Story Atrium

Obama Presidential Center Honoree

Space Name: Our Story Atrium | Museum | Lower Level

History is not something we inherit, but something we build together. Here, we honor the experiences, challenges, and hopes that shape us and we encourage you to start a conversation—to share your story. By sharing our experiences, listening to others, and engaging across differences, we strengthen the bonds that connect us and help build a society rooted in understanding, responsibility, and hope.

With gratitude to Oprah Winfrey

“ For all our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone. That’s always been our story. We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.”

–President Barack Obama

Legacy on Campus

  • Obama Presidential Center Museum

    Built where the Obamas’ story began—Chicago’s South Side—the Museum presents the remarkable story of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, America’s first Black president and First Lady. 

    Learn More

  • Power of Words

    Discover Power of Words, a four-story canvas for filmic storytelling, art, and sound that helps us understand the potency of  words and language as tools that inspire, empower, and connect people in their pursuit of social progress. 

Make a gift in honor of your heroes

Your honorary gift will help us inspire, empower, and connect leaders from around the world to take on the biggest challenges of our time.

The Barack Obama Foundation is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 46-4950751).

John Lewis

Meet More Honorees

Through the honoree naming initiative at the Obama Presidential Center, we are partnering with our donors to celebrate a part of the history in which the Obama story is so deeply rooted by associating a named space with a hero, moment, or person "on whose shoulders we stand"—an honoree who made the Obamas’ story possible.

Meet More Honorees