Dignity & Progress

The opening of the Obama Presidential Center this summer (2026) in Chicago provides a good opportunity to reflect on the iconic portraits of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama from 2018. Kehinde Wiley painted President Obama in a sea of foliage, and Amy Sherald painted the First Lady enveloped by colorful cloth. Both Wiley and Sherald are renowned contemporary artists, and their selection indicated that the President and First Lady did not want traditional portraits. The resulting works are larger-than-life, radiant, and evocative—inherently resistant to one-dimensional interpretation. The portraits inspire viewers to engage emotionally and see themselves in the artworks. 

The works naturally exhibit the dignity of the sitters. Both paintings also seem to recognize the humanity of their audience. The portraits direct their gaze at the viewer, offering accessibility and the idea that the individual looking at the portrait is important. 

Doreen St. Félix wrote in The New Yorker, “(Amy Sherald’s) paintings make the viewer speculate about the quieter wants and wishes of the Black common men and women who have emerged on the linen.” These portraits are more than a record of a presidency or a testament to powerful people in history, they are pieces of contemporary art that connect with the audience and call on them to think on their own humanity, as well as that of others.  

This call to realize our shared humanity is quite literally written into the foundational ideas of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence recognizes the dignity of all humans: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Yet the White lawyers and wealthy landowners who crafted this statement could not live up to it entirely. Many of them owned and profited from enslaved people, and some balked at the idea of giving voting rights to men who did not own land. Women were not given equal rights or voting privileges. Perhaps we can view the Declaration of Independence as a blueprint for the future. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington may not have been able or willing to live out the values they honored or to support the human dignity they claimed as an unalienable right, but they were successful in laying the foundation for a society that—one day—could. 

In his 1926 poem, “I, too”, Langston Hughes wrote with resilient hope: Tomorrow, / I’ll be at the table / When company comes. / Nobody’ll dare / Say to me, / “Eat in the kitchen,” / Then. / Besides, / They’ll see how beautiful I am / And be ashamed— / I, too, am America.

That “tomorrow” did arrive (in some form) when Barack Obama was elected to be the first Black president of the United States in 2008. Many saw this as a major turning point for the country, as a vivid symbol of progress since the country’s founding in 1776. Of course, the facts of police brutality and voter suppression have proved there is still a long way to go. The path of progress is not always linear—and it may even double back on itself—but our collective actions wear this very path into reality. 

The blooming flowers in Barack Obama’s portrait echo this sentiment. In the words of Vinson Cunningham, “Obama’s truest political gift, perhaps, was the ability to let a thousand flowers of expectation, born of history, bloom.” 

The respect for each other’s essential human dignity can be expressed in very real and tangible ways. May our treatment of other people contribute to a future promised but not yet fully realized. 

If you found this article interesting, we invite you to listen to episode nineteen of the Facing the Moment podcast, Upholding Dignity Through Racial Tension. In this episode, Toufic Hakim, PhD, speaks with Requina Barnes, MSW, about the complexities of preserving and promoting the essential dignity of all humans by pursuing justice amid systemic racism.