To commemorate the fifth anniversary of President Obama’s election, historical organization Forgotten Chicago led a bus tour of the South Side last Sunday to share insight into his time as a community organizer in the 1980s.
Tour stops included Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project on the far South Side, and the Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pullman, two places where Obama worked as a community organizer. For lunch, the group stopped at Valois, Obama’s favorite restaurant.
Forgotten Chicago is a historical organization started in 2007 dedicated to providing tours and information about the forgotten architecture and history of neighborhoods in Chicago.
“We saw the fact that this year is the five-year anniversary of Obama’s election in 2008, and there really wasn’t anything going on to commemorate that fact,” said Jacob Kaplan, Forgotten Chicago founder and one of the tour leaders. “There’s so many places in the city relevant to the President’s early history that really aren’t explored, so we decided to do this tour as a one-time thing.”