-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email The last time I watched President Barack Obama deliver a speech in Chicago was in 2017 at the McCormick Place Convention Center. It was his now legendary farewell address . I watched President Obama from the press area behind and parallel to the stage.
It was not the most ideal view. But it was the best view for me as I thought about Obama’s legacy and the country’s first Black president, all that he accomplished and the challenges of the color line that hope and change could not hurdle over. I had a few tears of joy and mourning as I watched Obama’s speech as I thought about how proud my father and mother would be that I, the child of a janitor and home healthcare worker, perpetual renters who never owned a home, and a proud member of the Black working class, was sitting here, so close to America’s first Black president.
I wrote the following that evening : As I stood in the security screening line earlier, I decided that after Obama's farewell address I would go to Michigan Avenue, buy a 34-ounce can of Asahi beer, put it in a brown paper bag and then stand across from Trump Tower. As I took deep sips of my favorite beer I would then look up at that testament to ego and narcissism and proceed to curse Donald Trump — for all the wickedness, damage and insult he has already done and will certainly do to America, her citizens and the world. But after listening to Obama's farewell address, I decided to not do those things, for t.