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At Thursday’s ceremony marking the beginning of the Obama Presidential Center’s opening weekend, the master of ceremonies began with a left-wing “land acknowledgment ritual,” for which the entire event was promptly mocked.
Valerie Jarrett, the former senior advisor to Obama when he was president and the current CEO of the Obama Foundation, kicked things off.
“We’d also like to take a moment to recognize the original inhabitants of the land upon which we are gathered today,” she said. “We honor the Anishinaabe, the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Odawa and the Potawatomi nations.”
Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett stands near the Obama Presidential Center under construction in Chicago’s Jackson Park. The foundation reported nearly $210 million in total revenue in 2024, according to federal filings. (Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)
Land acknowledgments have been mocked as performative left-wing routines completed to commemorate the Native Americans who once lived on the land where an event is happening.
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They are an extension of the belief that the United States exists on “stolen land.”
But as many keen online observers noted, Democrats hosting the Obama Presidential Center’s grand opening have no intention of returning the land to the people they believe are its rightful owners.
“Wouldn’t they prefer you just give them their land back?” conservative commentator Steve Deace asked sarcastically.
Barack Obama speaks during the dedication of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois. (Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)
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“Land acknowledgements are funny because the real message is ‘I want to say I care, but I don’t really care or I wouldn’t have built this on land which I just said is yours,’” said Beth Anne Mumford of Americans for Prosperity.
“So you just went ahead and built on that land anyway, huh,” said conservative commentator Stephen Miller
Townhall senior strategist Siraj Hashmi weighed in with a reference to infamous Chicago rapper Chief Keef.
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“Pretty disrespectful for the Obama Presidential Center to not acknowledge the current tribe leader of the South Side of Chicago: Chief Keef,” he quipped.
Musician Bruce Springsteen performs during the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in the Jackson Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, on June 18, 2026. (Talia Sprague/Bloomberg)
An anonymous user balked at the logic, or apparent lack thereof, of building “a communist monument” on “stolen land” that the new owners refused to give back.
“The mental hurdles are Olympics level,” the user said.
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Thursday’s event featured high-profile Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, along with A-list performers like John Legend, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen who put on a concert.
Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, David Letterman and others were also present.
The presidential center itself, which cost nearly $1 billion to build and has been embroiled in controversy, will officially open on Friday. It was initially estimated to cost about half that amount.
A view of the Obama Presidential Center from a nearby roadway in Chicago. (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)
Despite the explicitly stated goal that the center would help uplift minority-owned contracting businesses by hiring them to work on high-profile projects, some claim they’ve been stiffed and are facing financial ruin, according to a Fox News Digital investigation.
One subcontractor says his firm is owed $4 million for work it completed on the center.
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The project was announced in 2015, and the site — Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side — chosen in 2016, but the groundbreaking was delayed until 2021 due to bureaucratic red tape. The project required numerous local and federal approvals to build on the location, which is a historic preservation site, multiple environmental reviews and was subject to several lawsuits.
After construction began, the price tag on the project continuously skyrocketed. The center was scheduled to open in March 2025, but was delayed for another year
