Chicago cheers adopted son Obama as he returns for farewell speech as president
Chicago cheers adopted son Obama as he returns for farewell speech as president
Posted by John P. Bradford // January 11, 2017
Many Chicagoans swell with pride for Barack Obama, whose life and work were enshrined as the best of the south side long before his last presidential address
Zariff can remember cutting Barack Obamas hair for his breakthrough speech at the Democratic national convention address in 2004. I cut it real short for that one, the barber said. He went from medium to short. I thought it should be different.
On Tuesday, Obama will again sit calmly as Zariff, his personal hairdresser for more than two decades, prepares him to walk out before an ecstatic, expectant crowd. This time it will be to deliver his last address as US president. He will reflect on what he got done, what went undone, and what a Donald Trump future portends for America and the world.
Hopes are high that he has one more great speech left in him.
Unlike Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W Bush, Obama has opted to give his farewell address not in the White House but in his adopted home. Chicago, Americas third biggest city, is guaranteed to give the president an adoring, raucous, never-let-me-go sendoff.
Such is the strength of feeling for Obama here he will always be Chicagos president, a city newspaper headline declared last week that competition for seats at the primetime event rivalled that for the Broadway musical Hamilton. Swaddled in heavy winter coats, hats and gloves, people queued in the freezing cold from 4.30am on Saturday for one of the 7,000 free tickets some of which are now being sold for thousands of dollars online.