Oil painting of Barrack Obama receiving a haircut at Hyde Park Hair Salon on January 11, 2009.Anthony Robert La Penna/The Globe and Mail
Chicago’s Hyde Park is an American political birthplace, the neighbourhood where Barack Obama still occasionally spends the night, where residents reminisce about buying Christmas trees alongside him and where a local salon keeps a barber chair enclosed in glass, a shrine of sorts to the former president.
But Mr. Obama no longer commands the political sway he once enjoyed here, even among those who have rubbed shoulders with him, some of whom say they no longer have any intention of voting a Democrat into office.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, strode onto a Chicago stage to make the case for Kamala Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother who would be the first woman of colour to be U.S. president.
“America, hope is making a comeback,” Ms. Obama said. She joked that perhaps it’s time to think of the presidency as a place for people who don’t look like Donald Trump.
“Who is going to tell him that the job he is currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs,” she said.
Her husband’s message was more direct: “Yes, she can.”
“America is ready for a new chapter. America’s ready for a better story,” Mr. Obama said.
On his own city’s south side, however, “there’s more skepticism than there used to be,” said Kris Golden, one of the barbers at the Hyde Park Hair Salon, where photos and a portrait of Mr. Obama still hold pride of place.
“The economy is a little messed up. Got a lot of immigration issues right now,” Mr. Golden explained. Across the street, dozens of new arrivals from Venezuela regularly gather outside a church. Some have taken gig economy jobs, and local resentments have built.
“It’s not the same feeling of hope that Obama had presented,” said Mr. Golden, 49.
For Democrats, the sudden rise to prominence of Ms. Harris has raised hopes that the party can bolster its support among the Black, Hispanic and young Americans that have traditionally formed some of its core constituencies. Before Joe Biden stepped aside as presidential candidate, the party had watched with concern as Mr. Trump appeared poised to win over greater numbers of those voters.
Barber Ishmael Alamin, left, and Drew Stevens are reflected in a mirror at Hyde Park Hair Salon, where former president Barrack Obama received haircuts, on Sunday, January 11, 2009.Anthony Robert La Penna/The Globe and Mail
With Ms. Harris, a woman of colour who is decades younger than Mr. Biden, Democrats saw new reason to believe they can restore those strongholds. Recent measures of public confidence have buttressed that optimism; a Suffolk University/USA Today poll suggested that Black voter support for Ms. Harris had leapt by roughly 15 percentage points in Michigan and Pennsylvania, both key swing states.
Democrats have nevertheless committed millions of dollars to woo Black voters this year, a sign the party remains uncertain of its prospects with a vital electoral group.
Shifting views in Hyde Park suggest one reason why, even if the neighbourhood is unlikely to be a major area of focus. The Obama stronghold cast more than 90 per cent of its votes for Mr. Biden in 2020. In a local park, construction is under way on Mr. Obama’s US$830-million presidential centre.
“He’s a great role model – him and Michelle are like the top tier of goals,” said Alela Lloyd, 24. She was still in elementary school when she marked an instructional ballot for Mr. Obama, part of a school effort to build political literacy.
But like others she admits to doubts in her support for Ms. Harris. She points to Mr. Trump’s recent support for TikTok, an app she relies upon to treat ailments and care for her skin.
“It’s so hard. Donald Trump is convincing me,” she said.
The confluence of people and frank opinion is part of what made the salon an anchor in Mr. Obama’s life. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he described it as one of the ways he remained rooted as his public profile expanded.
“Our family still makes its home in Chicago,” he wrote. “I still go to the same Hyde Park barbershop to get my hair cut.”
After Mr. Obama became president, he asked his barber, Zariff Smith, to continue cutting his hair. Mr. Smith flew to Washington for Mr. Obama’s inauguration and regularly in the years that followed. He still works in Hyde Park, where nothing can match the excitement stirred by Mr. Obama’s ascent, he said Tuesday.
But he is prepared to heed an endorsement of Ms. Harris from the man he calls “Barack.”
“He has very good instincts. He’s a people person. So if him and his wife are endorsing her, I’m 100 per cent for her,” he said.
But the former president himself is no longer a customer. And those who do still come are no longer certain they care much for what he has to say.
“All my life I been a Democrat,” said Rome Curtis, 37, a truck driver who was in for a cut this week, where he recalled being there while Mr. Obama was in for a trim. “But I tell you, people are tired of the Democrats.”
He bristles at the notion that the colour of his skin should determine his vote.
And how is it possible, he asks, that people who illegally cross the border – more than 46,000 of whom have arrived in Chicago in less than two years – can receive support for housing, while Black communities still struggle?
Besides, he said, if Mr. Obama failed to deliver more for the Black community, why would he trust Ms. Harris?
“If he couldn’t do it, I already know that she can’t do it.”