Obama and Japan inspiring world peace in Jackson Park, Chicago

In 2025, the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) will open across the lagoon in Jackson Park from the Garden of the Phoenix.

With the opening of the OPC will come a renewed opportunity to discover the beauty of the Garden of the Phoenix and to learn valuable lessons from the US-Japan relationship that are reflected in its 130-year history and highlighted by President Obama's speech during his historic visit to Hiroshima in 2016.

Photo: Obama Presidential Center (right) across the lagoon from the Garden of the Phoenix (left) | Photo Credit: Umiimu

Photo: Obama Presidential Center from the Garden of the Phoenix | Photo Credit: Umiimu

The Japanese have long believed that when a phoenix descends from the heavens, a new era of peace and prosperity will begin. When the Garden of the Phoenix was dedicated on March 31, 1893, Japanese and Americans gathered together on the Wooded Island to celebrate the arrival of a Phoenix that would take the form of a pavilion, which they hoped would not only teach the world about Japan, but in turn, lead us to learn about each other and ourselves.

Photo: The Phoenix Pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition | Photo credit: Umiimu

No one at that time could have predicted that within a few generations that these two nations, let alone the world, would experience two world wars. Or that the Phoenix Pavilion dedicated to promote mutual respect and understanding would be destroyed by hatred.

Photo: The Phoenix Pavilion destroyed by arson in 1946 | Photo credit: Umiimu

On May 27, 2016, as the first sitting President of the United States to visit Hiroshima, President Obama paid tribute to the people of Hiroshima, calling on humanity to learn the lessons of the past to make war less likely and cruelty less acceptable.

“On a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed.”
“Why did we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead,” he said. “Their souls speak to us, they ask us to look inward, take stock of who we are.”
“We must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race… We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story –- one that describes a common humanity; one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted.”

Photo: President Obama and Prime Minister Abe at Hiroshima Peace Memorial, 2016 | Photo Credit: New York Times

President Obama went on to described what he called "humanity's core contradiction."

“The World War that reached its brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought among the wealthiest and most powerful of nations. Their civilizations had given the world great cities and magnificent art. Their thinkers had advanced ideas of justice and harmony and truth. And yet, the war grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes; an old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints. In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die -- men, women, children no different than us, shot, beaten, marched, bombed, jailed, starved, gassed to death.”
“There are many sites around the world that chronicle this war -- memorials that tell stories of courage and heroism; graves and empty camps that echo of unspeakable depravity. Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction; how the very spark that marks us as a species -- our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our tool-making, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will -- those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction.”

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to visit the OPC each year, in addition to the over 1.5 million visitors to the Museum of Science and Industry. With this comes the opportunity for Jackson Park to again become a place to inspire, empower, and connect people to change the world. This is what the leaders of the World’s Columbian Exposition had envisioned would be the legacy of that great event.

"The impress of our work will be so delicately and imperceptibly woven into the fabric of the future that it will have a finer and more beautiful texture. It will sink deep into the minds of the learned and unlearned alike. It will stimulate the youth of this and later generations to greater and more heroic effort. It will give to the wheels of commerce a new impetus; thereby bring the people of the earth into more intimate and, I trust, happier relations."
"Let us hope that future generations will look back to this place with reverence, satisfaction and pride, as the spot where was laid the deep foundation of a monument that should mark the dawn of a new era, emphasizing the benign influence of the gospel of peace, the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man. Let us indulge the fond hope that its influence will increase until it encircles the globe and encompasses the human race."
- Harlow Niles Higinbotham (1838-1919), President of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

As we prepare for 2025 and the opening of the OPC, let us embrace the lessons of the past. Let us embark on a reawakening in Jackson Park, and embrace the fact that the path to world peace begins within each of us.

"We must change our mindset about war itself"–- to prevent conflict through diplomacy, and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun; to see our growing interdependence as a cause for peaceful cooperation and not violent competition; to define our nations not by our capacity to destroy, but by what we build."
- President Barak Obama, Hiroshima, 2016

Complete Hiroshima Speech

Obama and Japan inspiring world peace in Jackson Park, Chicago

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