Michele Norris
speaker
715 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 20 Jun
Michele Norris’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
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 moment.
place for the south side of Chicago and the city of Chicago for kids in the neighborhood that it was going to be used.
And that, I think, more than anything, shaped how we thought about what this thing would end up being.
The location, in part, was determined by the fact that this is the epicenter of
my life in Chicago.
Within a four or five mile radius of that site, I first came to Chicago, I got my first apartment there, I met my wife there, my children were born there, my wife grew up there, our wedding reception was there, I made my announcement for my first presidential
for my first political campaign there.
I taught law school there.
So that was part of what made that site so attractive to us.
But, as you say, one of the things that I learned when I moved to Chicago, and one of the things that Michelle had firsthand experience with growing up in Chicago, was...
Even though the south side of Chicago runs on the lakefront just like the north side of Chicago does, for a whole bunch of historical reasons, the parks, the open spaces, the public facilities in those communities were underinvested in relative to other neighborhoods in Chicago.
And so for a long time, I would—
drive through Lincoln Park in the north side of Chicago and you'd look around and there are people playing volleyball and there are tennis courts and there are kiosks and there's programming and museums.
And then Jackson Park, which was just as beautiful, was empty.
And that sent a message.
And
When I was organizing and when I was serving as a state legislator, I was always shocked when you'd hear stories from kids who would say, well, I've actually never gone to the lakefront.
Even though they lived on the south side?
They lived in Englewood, but it's just, it felt foreign to them.
Showing 541–560 of 715 · page 28 of 36
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