Noose Found At Obama Presidential Center Construction Site

“This shameless act of cowardice and hate is designed to get attention and divide us. Our priority is protecting the health and safety of our workforce,” reads a statement from Barack Obama’s foundation.

The firm build­ing the Obama Presidential Center sus­pend­ed oper­a­tions Thursday after a noose was found at the site, and it offered a $100,000 reward to help find who was responsible.
Lakeside Alliance, a part­ner­ship of Black-owned con­struc­tion firms, said it report­ed the inci­dent to police and “will pro­vide any assis­tance required to iden­ti­fy those responsible.

“We have zero tol­er­ance for any form of bias or hate on our work­site. Anti-bias train­ing is includ­ed in our onboard­ing process and reit­er­at­ed dur­ing site-wide meet­ings. We are sus­pend­ing all oper­a­tions onsite in order to pro­vide anoth­er series of these train­ings and con­ver­sa­tions for all staff and work­ers,” the firm said.

Former President Barack Obama’s foun­da­tion also released a statement.

“This shame­less act of cow­ardice and hate is designed to get atten­tion and divide us. Our pri­or­i­ty is pro­tect­ing the health and safe­ty of our work­force,” the state­ment said. The Chicago Police Department is aware of the noose and the mat­ter is under inves­ti­ga­tion, said Sgt. Rocco Alioto, a depart­ment spokesman.
An alliance spokes­woman, Lara Cooper, said she could not com­ment on whether it sus­pects a work­er at the site and how the pause will affect the work

City work to pre­pare for con­struc­tion began in spring 2021 with the an offi­cial ground­break­ing the fol­low­ing September. The foun­da­tion has said the cen­ter is slat­ed to open in 2025. Organizers expect it to attract about 750,000 vis­i­tors a year.