As the U.S. marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year, LGBTQ history is being fully embraced in presidential history.

Advancements in LGBTQ equality and the contributions of LGBTQ Americans are incorporated into the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, and were celebrated at the Center’s grand opening on Juneteenth.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama included the progress made for LGBTQ people during his two terms as president in their remarks at the ceremony.

Mrs. Obama paid tribute to her husband’s achievements including “rescuing the economy, ending a war, ordering the bin Laden raid, saving an auto industry,” as well as “standing up for marriage equality.”

Mrs. Obama said the Obama Presidential Center was “created as a beacon of hope, a monument to our unshakeable values” like the ones her husband and our country exemplify: “equality, empathy, honesty, inclusion, fairness.”

LGBTQ artists are among the nearly 30 artists commissioned to create works throughout the Obama Presidential Center, including Nick Cave, whose textile collaboration with Marie Watt, This Land, Shared Sky “merges Indigenous and Black traditions” as the focal point of the “We the People” landing and grand staircase, the Obama Presidential Center reported.

“The exhibits here focus not just on policies, but on the shared values that make democracy possible,” Mrs. Obama said. “A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people.”

Queer Chicago-born artist Sam Kirk collaborated with Dorian Sylvain for the vibrant mural “Pass It Forward” at Home Court, a basketball court created for community teams’ use and reflecting the role of sports in the Obama presidency, the artists told WBEZ.

“Known for his support of women’s sports, Obama met with the Chicago Sky women’s basketball team in 2022, following their WNBA championship the season before,” WBEZ noted.

Out artist Mark Bradford created the three-story City of the Big Shoulders on the west wall of the “Our Story Atrium” in the Museum Building, mapping Chicago “through an embrace of fragmentation and perspective, collapsing landscape into memory and compressing history into a story of pressure, power, survival and hope.”

“I want people to lay their stories on top of the map,’ Bradford said. ‘It can be what you want it to be. The painting becomes yours.”

At the opening ceremony, President Obama urged visitors to “skip the clips of my speeches, you have heard them all before” and instead hear the stories of ordinary citizens who helped make change happen.

“The cancer survivor, who feared rising premiums would force her out of her home, and was brave enough to speak out about it. She’s why we pushed so hard for health care reform,” President Obama said.

“The wounded warrior overcoming debilitating injuries,” President Obama continued.

“The gay Air Force major serving her country even when forced to hide who she was. They’re why we worked to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. and care for those who’ve worn our country’s uniform and do right by our military families,” President Obama said.

Spaces in the Center are named for civil rights and democracy leaders “who inspired President and Mrs. Obama’s own leadership journeys and represent those ‘on whose shoulders we stand’ to advance progress, dignity, and inclusion in our societies,” the Center reported, including LGBTQ icons Alvin Ailey and James Baldwin.

A More Inclusive America Exhibit in the Obama Presidential Center Museum honors choreographer Alvin Ailey, “who believed that dance belongs to everyone,” the Center reported.

The Obama Foundation Offices honor James Baldwin, “the groundbreaking writer and public intellectual whose novels, essays, and speeches challenged American views on race, identity, and sexuality, and who used his moral clarity to profoundly shape public discourse on the Civil Rights Movement.”

“There is a new generation out there ready to write the next chapter of our story,” President Obama said.

“We intend to help them do it. And we ask that you join us.”