Quote · The Indicator from Planet Money
Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side
Where this was said
Meet the Guests: Two South Siders Who've Been Watching This Story
At 7:07 · chapter starts 6:08
Gene Demby brings in his two guests, both of whom have front-row seats to the Obama Center story. Natalie Moore is a Chicago native and longtime reporter who now teaches journalism at Northwestern University; she has been covering this story from before the site was even selected, giving her what Demby calls a 'longitudinal view.' Myra Kwadja is a writer, educator, and multimedia producer at the Invisible Institute — a South Side journalism company that primarily investigates police misconduct — where she ran a youth program at Hyde Park Academy for nearly a decade, interviewing students about their feelings on the development throughout its construction. Together they represent complementary vantage points: the journalist tracking institutions and the educator embedded with the young people most directly affected.
Natalie Moore and Myra Kwadja both lived two blocks from the Obamas on Greenwood Avenue. The South Side's relationship with Barack Obama was personal, physical, and possessive — not the abstract hero-worship of the rest of the country.
