- Hi, I am Fred Nahhat from Detroit PBS, and it is our absolute honor to present this special program capturing the centennial celebration of the Kresge Foundation, recorded before a live audience at the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Institute of Arts, this television special showcases a century of Kresge philanthropic support, the communities it serves, and its vision for the future.

Coming up, we will share some incredible moments, including a conversation with President Barack Obama, a tribute from Mayor Mike Duggan, a short film history, and performances from some of Detroit's signature artists.

And now honoring its 100 years of service to Detroit and to America, this is the Kresge 100 celebration.

(uplifting music) - [Emcee] Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us tonight for our Kresge at 100 celebration.

Please give a warm welcome to "Detroit Queen of the Blues," Thornetta Davis.

(attendees clapping) (electric guitar strumming) ♪ If I had a hammer ♪ I'd hammer in the morning ♪ Hammer in the evening ♪ All over this land ♪ I'd hammer out danger ♪ I'd hammer out a warning ♪ I'd hammer out love between ♪ My brothers and my sisters ♪ All over this land Yeah, woo!

(electric guitar music) ♪ If I had a bell ♪ I'd ring it in the morning ♪ Ring it in the evening ♪ All over this land ♪ I'd ring out danger ♪ I'd ring out a warning ♪ I'd ring out love between ♪ My brothers and my sisters ♪ All over this land Yes, if y'all know this song, you can sing it.

♪ If I had a song ♪ I'd sing it in the morning, hey ♪ ♪ Sing it in the evening ♪ All over this land ♪ I'd sing out danger ♪ I'd sing out a warning ♪ I'd sing out love between ♪ My brothers and my sisters ♪ All over this land ♪ Now say yeah, say yeah ♪ Say yeah Sounds so good.

♪ Say yeah Now y'all sound so good saying yeah.

Y'all gonna sing the verse with me.

Come on, Detroit.

Now this first verse, if I had a hammer, just follow me.

Well, sing with me.

♪ If I had a hammer In the morning.

♪ I'd hammer in the mor In the evening.

♪ Hammer in the eve All over.

♪ All over this land.

I'd hammer out danger.

♪ Hammer out danger A warning.

♪ I'd hammer out a warning, yes ♪ ♪ I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters ♪ ♪ All over this land That was pretty good.

Can I get y'all to clap with me?

Come on.

(attendees clap) Now we gonna do a second verse.

Now that second verse says, if I have a bell.

If I had a bell, okay?

Here we go, woo!

♪ If I had a bell, yeah ♪ I'd ring it in the morning Ring it in evening ♪ Ring it in the evening Where?

♪ All over this land, hey Danger ♪ Ring out danger A warning.

♪ I'd ring out a warning, love ♪ I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters ♪ ♪ Hey, all over this land ♪ Everybody say yeah Woo!

♪ Yeah ♪ Sing yeah ♪ Sing yeah Oh, we got one more verse for you, okay?

Now this last verse is, if I had, what is it?

If I had a bell, a song.

And we got a song, right?

♪ If I had a song ♪ I'd sing it in the morning ♪ Well, I'd sing it in the evening ♪ ♪ All over this land ♪ I'd sing out danger ♪ I'd sing out a warning ♪ I'd sing out love between my brothers ♪ ♪ And my sisters all over this land ♪ ♪ Now everybody say yeah ♪ Sing yeah ♪ Sing yeah ♪ Sing yeah Now guess what I got?

♪ I got a hammer and I got a bell ♪ ♪ And I got a song to sing all over this land ♪ ♪ A hammer for justice ♪ A bell for freedom ♪ A song about love between my brothers ♪ and my sisters all over this land ♪ Said I got a song to sing for my brothers ♪ ♪ And my sisters all over this land ♪ Woo!

God bless you, Detroit.

(audience clapping) (gentle guitar music ends) Woo!

(audience cheering and clapping) - Thank you.

- Girl, I love you.

- Yes, a Detroit jewel.

(audience cheers and claps) A global treasure.

The queen of the blues, Thornetta Davis, one more time.

(audience cheers and claps) Hello, hello, hello, everyone.

- [Attendees] Hello!

- I'm Satori Shakoor.

(audience whooping and clapping) And I am excited to be here with you at the historic Detroit Film Theater to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Kresge Foundation.

(audience cheers and claps) A little story, 100 years ago, on this very day, June 11th, 1924, Sebastian Spering Kresge, also known as S.S. Kresge, founded the Kresge Foundation with a simple mission, to promote human progress.

At the time, the S.S. Kresge company was 25 years old, expanding rapidly and delivering on a promise to bring affordable goods to a growing America.

Today, the Kresge Foundation delivers on its promise by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America's cities.

The Kresge Foundation is working to remove the barriers to equality and justice.

And I'm excited to say we are gonna learn about many of those efforts throughout the program.

Now, one of the ways that Kresge fulfills its mission is through its commitment to arts and culture.

(audience claps and cheers) And like many of the performers you'll see tonight, I am a proud Kresge Artist fellow.

(audience claps and cheers) The Kresge Artist Fellowships, along with the complimentary Kresge Eminent Artist and Guild Awards, have lifted the careers of hundreds of artists across Metro Detroit.

These awards recognize and enable artistic exploration, expression, and excellence With over $8 million distributed to date, this is only one example of what Kresge support has meant for so many of us throughout the decades and across the country.

We thank you Kresge Foundation.

To continue our Kresge at a 100 celebration, let me introduce a person whose vision has, without question, shaped the arc of Kresge's hometown of Detroit.

He has served three terms leading the citizens of Detroit, promoting the betterment of our residence and our region.

Let's give him a big, warm, what up do welcome to the stage, Detroit Mayor, Mike Duggan.

- All right.

(audience cheers and claps) Well, good evening.

(groovy music) We've got another historic night.

We've had a few of 'em lately.

Anybody see the concert at the train station a few nights ago?

(audience cheers and claps) Anybody out for the NFL draft?

(audience cheers and claps) It is a different time in Detroit, but I wanted to be here, because the Kresge Foundation had an awful lot to do with all the successes we're experiencing this year.

And you know the history, Sebastian Kresge starting the first store a mile down the street on Woodward with the iconic sign, nothing over 10 cents.

The few of you out there my age, remember, we used to call 'em the dime stores.

And 25 years later started the foundation, which is 100 years ago.

In that 100 years, they've given away $5 billion, a billion of it in the city of Detroit.

(audience cheers and claps) But nothing has been as important as what they've done in the last 20 years when we really needed them.

And Rip Rapson has been a visionary leader.

(audience cheers and claps) So I met Rip when I was the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center right down the street.

And he came in with David, David Edgar was then running the Hudson-Webber Foundation.

They came to see me and the heads of Henry Ford and Wayne State University.

And this is the first time I heard a pitch from Rip.

He says, we got this idea.

Half of the apartments in midtown Detroit are empty, and the three of you have 20,000 employees between you.

We want you to get your employees to move into the neighborhood.

And we looked at 'em like they're crazy.

We're running hospitals and universities.

Why should we be talking about who lives in the neighborhoods?

And he said, "Well, we'll make you a deal.

We wanna give somebody who moves in $2,000 one time to move in rent for their first year.

And if you pay 1000, we'll pay the other 1000."

And the three of us are still looking at it.

I said, "Rip, you think somebody's gonna uproot their lives and move for one $2,000 payment?"

And he says, "Mike, look at it this way.

If they don't move, it won't cost you anything."

(audience laughs) On that logic, we all signed up.

(audience laughs) Six months later, every apartment in midtown was occupied.

(audience claps) We caught this time where the young people in America wanted to move to the cities.

And it turned out just as they thought it triggered it.

And people think the recovery started downtown.

But it was three years later that Dan Gilbert and his group started to live downtown.

The recovery of Detroit started right here.

And Rip Rapson and Kresge had a lot to do with it.

And then they had this other idea with Roger Penske that if you ran a street car down Woodward, huge development would occur all through midtown and downtown.

And Kresge was the biggest owner at $35 million.

And we saw billions of development.

But when things got bad and we headed for bankruptcy, Kresge still kept putting money into the riverfront, $50 million.

And I know there's a stories today, but it does not take away for the transformational effect that has been had on that riverfront.

(audience claps) We've got a central gathering place.

And when Detroit was in bankruptcy, and Kevin Ory, the emergency manager, was trying to sell off the art and cut the pensions, it was the "Grand Bargain" and the Kresge Foundation putting up $100 million that saved the employees pension and protected the art forever.

(audience claps) And so I would always say they'd have these signs that said Detroit versus everybody, I always thought it should have said Detroit and Kresge versus everybody, 'cause I always felt like they were on our side.

But I'll tell you one last story, to give you a sense of how much Rip Rapson and Kresge have meant.

About 2015-2016, it was obvious to me that Marygrove College was gonna close.

I had family who worked there.

I'd been on the Marygrove board, I was deeply engaged.

And I got over there and I could tell that the original history of an education institution for women with what had happened in the demographics and what had happened at Wayne State and UAD Mercy, there was no way that college was gonna make it.

And I thought, I watched when Hudson's closed and the site sat there for 40 years.

I watched when the train station closed, the site sat there 40 years.

I said, I'm not gonna let this happen.

And then this so often happens, Rip Rapson walks into my office.

(audience laughs) And he says, "Mike, I gotta tell you something really confidential.

Marygrove College is in financial trouble."

I said, "Really?"

He says, "Yeah."

He says, "But I'm gonna give 'em enough money to make it another year until we can figure it out."

I said, "Rip, that's all okay.

But what happens when they don't make it?

We gotta figure out what to do with 50 acres.

That's what you really need to do."

He says, "No, no, no, we're not there yet."

Three months later, Rip comes back in my office, and he says, "Mike, there's no way to make this college work."

And I said, "All right."

He says, "But I have an idea."

I said, "You're not gonna find somebody big enough to take the whole campus."

He says, "You're right."

He says, "But I'm gonna get a whole bunch of people.

I'm gonna put $50 million in a Marygrove Conservancy, base the whole thing around kids.

I'm gonna bring the best daycare center in and set it up on campus.

I'm gonna go to the Detroit Public Schools and set up a K-8 school and a high school.

I'm gonna go to the University of Michigan college education and train teachers and have them use their techniques in these schools.

I'm gonna take this vacant space and run it out to non-profits who are kid-oriented, and we're gonna light this campus up."

And seven years later, that Marygrove campus is the jewel of Northwest Detroit.

(audience cheers and claps) You drive down six mile now, and if you haven't done it, go check it out.

All the storefronts that were covered with plywood, they're all being poured down.

Businesses are coming in, they're building new apartments.

And some of the most rapidly rising property values in the city are the Marygrove, Fitzgerald and Bagley neighborhoods there.

This would not be happening.

And so I wanted to be here tonight to say Kresge has been with us in our best times, Kresge has been with us in our worst times.

And thanks to the partnership, we're on our way back.

Thank you to everybody who made that possible.

(audience cheers and claps) - Thank you, Mayor Duggan.

(audience claps) (gentle groovy music) Let's give another round of applause.

(audience cheers and claps) In 1924, Sebastian Kresge was successful.

He had built a strong retail empire that led to great personal wealth.

But Mr. Kresge still wanted to make an impact.

Looking toward the future, he wanted to do something big that would last, something that would benefit generations of people.

What could he do long-term?

What could he do that would benefit generations of diverse populations that would create a brighter future and a better world?

And to that grand idea, the Kresge Foundation was born.

The short film you're about to see, produced by Detroit-based FREE AGE Productions and the foundation's communications team, will tell us the rest of the story.

(audience claps) - Kresge is the kind of foundation that says it's okay to shake things up.

When you're trying to battle things that are as pervasive as poverty, things that are as difficult and unjust as racism and inequities, you have to shake things up.

- Kresge is one which makes highly considered thoughtful decisions, and oftentimes is in advance of the rest of the philanthropic community and seeing the value of something.

- This is 100 years of doing important fundamental things in communities, but also questioning how do we make the best use of every dollar?

How do we maximize our impact?

How do we focus to make sure that we're really good at a thing that is deeply important?

(bright music) - My great-grandfather, Sebastian, was the founder of the foundation, and he grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania.

Poor family, they lost the farm.

At one point, he decided that ultimately farming wasn't for him and went to business school.

He knew how to sell things and was successful.

(wistful music) - [Reporter] It was from this small beginning that the company grew until today with more than 700 stores and over 35,000 employees in the United States and Canada.

- [Cynthia] They grew and grew and grew and ultimately went from S.S. Kresge Company to the Kmart Corporation.

(upbeat music) ♪ The best to you from Kmart radio ♪ - He made more money than he ever thought he'd want or need, and wanted to do something for the betterment of mankind.

And so the foundation began then in 1924.

- [Narrator] By the time of his death in 1966, Sebastian Kresge had donated more than $60 million to the foundation, making it one of the largest philanthropies in the US.

In its early years, the foundation became known for making Capital Challenge grants.

- [William] Let's say, they were gonna build a building for $5 million.

And so we might make a grant for $750,000 to help encourage donors to come forward.

We were building facilities all over the country and occasionally overseas.

- [Cecelia] To have civic buildings, places where the arts are performed, where people can gather, where you can, you know, find books, music, and other kind of cultural resources from your city, that's what makes a place a place.

- You know, one of the things that was said was, you know, buildings are where people are born, where they learn, where their heart swoon, where they get inspired, where they die.

So buildings and facilities are critically important.

- [Narrator] Former Kresge president, John Marshall, took this model of grant making to its peak form during his 27 years at the foundation.

- He was a huge believer in the Capital Challenge grant model.

He had seen the work that was done across the country and really believed that it had a lot of value.

He had a very disciplined approach to finding out what the community needed and then accelerating the process so that we could achieve it.

- The Kresge name, it's a seal of approval.

This is something that's worthy of investing in.

It's something that's gonna be transformational.

- The Kresge Foundation helps institutions learn how to do more private fundraising, not seeking federal support, not seeking state support, but with a real emphasis on private individual giving.

You know, that's the gift that keeps on giving.

- What was so interesting about the received traditions at Kresge was that they were really good.

They were really well done, and they had been honed over 20, 30 years.

- [Narrator] By the time of John Marshall's retirement in 2006, Kresge had awarded upwards of 10,000 challenge grants, totaling more than $3 billion.

And the foundation was on the search for new leadership.

In the words of then Board Chair, Elaine Rosen, "We wanted to do more, to do it better, and to have a more significant impact within the fields we have traditionally supported."

It was the right time to take Kresge's nearly $4 billion in assets out for a ride.

They found someone to do just that in Rip Rapson.

- When Rip arrived, he said, "Is there a way that we can engage more in the critical issues of our time?"

- Could we be more strategic in what we funded?

And could we have more impact beyond buildings?

- How do you optimize the value of philanthropy?

- I think the way to describe a leader like Rip Rapson, but also really the extraordinary talented people of the Kresge Foundation, is that they combine really deep knowledge.

They understand how to do really complex work, but they do it in a way that also brings a lot of humility to the work that they're listening to community leaders, community people and understanding what they want, how they envision their future and their city and their opportunity.

- If you think about Kresge's Capital Challenge grant work as just a box of a certain kind of capital investment, what would happen if we actually thought about different forms of capital?

Could you try something that was really innovative, give people some working capital to figure out something completely new that they hadn't thought about?

So I said, "Why don't we start with that sort of question of sort of stretching the capital spectrum?"

So it's no longer a box, it's sort of a stretch.

And a number of people said that that would be fine, but we still don't have any standard by which we would judge.

We're just expanding.

And so we have to have some way of narrowing that down.

And so why don't we think about a series of values?

And I said, so no one of those values would be a gate.

It just would be a weight.

And so if you put all of those values and applied it to this capital stretch, it begins to help you curate.

- [Narrator] These values helped the foundation establish funding priorities in fields such as the environment, arts and culture, health, human services, education and community development.

- And we developed a strategy for each one and then allocated grant dollars to those.

It was energizing.

- [Narrator] This expanded Kresge's philanthropic impact across many types of fields, requiring new expertise for each one.

- Capital moves into an arts field differently from how it moves into health, just different from how it moves into education.

This became something of a roadmap for us.

And we sort of began aligning our investments in very different ways.

But then 2013 came around in this sort of small matter of the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States hit Detroit.

- Congress was not gonna bail out the city of Detroit.

So we had to get creative and figure out what federal resources were in the pipeline that could be moved more quickly.

What were ways that the federal government could sort of bolster the civic architecture of the city, the civic leadership, so that it was clear that the federal government, the city itself and its civic leaders were all on the same side.

And the clear lead in that effort in the city of Detroit was the Kresge Foundation.

- It was really at an extraordinary inflection point for the city of Detroit.

And by this time, Kresge was sort of caught right in the middle of it in a way that, you know, called on all of the kind of tools that we had hoped to develop and hoped to employ.

- And what the "Grand Bargain" did was bring some great minds, some creativity and commitment to the city and the city's future that drastically minimized the negative impacts that the bankruptcy would have on people who had worked hard for the city of Detroit for decades.

- A lot of other people ran away, but Kresge never left.

And as Detroit was heading to bankruptcy, it was the Kresge Foundation that stepped up on the riverfront, stepped up on the QLine, stepped up at Marygrove College, stepped up on the "Grand Bargain."

And we were very fortunate.

They've been a big part of our recovery.

- It was only as we emerged from the bankruptcy, it was only as we began working in other places that we realized that there was a very different model of philanthropy.

We were both local and we were national.

We were both discipline-based and we were place-based.

We used not just grant making tools, but we used loan tools and other forms of social capital.

The aggregate impact was something I couldn't have imagined ever.

- [Narrator] Kresge's experience helping Detroit through the bankruptcy taught it lessons other cities were looking to learn.

So the foundation began to deepen its work in other places, such as Memphis, new Orleans and Fresno.

- Kresge has this big picture framework, you know, let's really understand the city at its sort of in most complex levels and try to understand how the interventions at multiple levels will really affect the health of the city.

And Kresge, I believe, because of where it's working and the way it's working, is learning things about how those cities work, that is really groundbreaking.

- What makes Kresge stand apart is its real fundamental understanding of how cities work.

(bright music) It's not a top-down effort.

It is really side-by-side deep appreciation of how hard the work is.

- We would not be here were it not for the Kresge Foundation.

I will get out there with our team and really have to push hard.

I could only push that hard knowing that I have the Kresge Foundation at my back.

- It's not just important to get the funding.

That is very important, because organizations like ours need that trust factor in a philanthropy partner.

But it also is just as important to have that intellectual thought relationship with a group that can help us apply our ideas and visions into something that is sustainable.

- It takes a very consistent, long-term patient approach, especially when program dollars and capital are involved.

Kresge has proven over a very long period of time that they understand that and that they're willing to go along for the ride.

- It also demonstrates, I think, a real humility on the part of Rip and his team.

They know how to do a lot of stuff and they have a lot of answers, but they understand that it's not just about showing up with answers.

It's about showing up in a listening mode, in order to develop a body of work that is real and meaningful and engages the people that it's intended to benefit.

- I never dreamed that we would be where we are now, that we would diversify our tools as we have, that we would work in multiple places as we have, that we would have contributed to the revitalization of one of the great iconic cities of the world as we have, and that we would've built a philanthropic way of working that is distinctive in American philanthropy.

So I'm hoping that when we look back in 5 or 10 or 20 years, we will see Kresge's influence in cities being broader and more profound.

(bright merry music) - [Emcee] Please welcome Cecelia Munoz, chair of the Kresge Foundation Board of Trustees.

(upbeat music) - Thank you so much.

Good evening, everyone.

I couldn't be more excited to welcome you tonight to the centennial celebration.

As you heard, my name is Cecelia Munoz and I have the great privilege of serving as the chair of the board of trustees of the Kresge Foundation.

(audience cheers and claps) And while I've spent a career in public service in Washington, DC, the thing I most want you to know about me is that I am a proud daughter of Detroit.

(audience cheers and claps) This city made my immigrant family's American dream possible, and I am incredibly proud of the work that the Kresge Foundation does alongside community leaders in Detroit, but also Memphis, New Orleans, Fresno, and host of other places.

We believe in cities as engines of economic opportunity, drivers of art and culture.

And the Kresge Foundation is focused on making sure that cities are making opportunity accessible to all.

It makes me so proud that this foundation has left so many marks on this city and so many others over the years.

It's complex and sophisticated work, and it's not always easy.

Everybody has a role to play in philanthropy, in the business community, in the neighborhood, in the government.

It can be so complicated to get all of those people coordinated.

But when Detroit was in a moment of deep financial crisis more than a decade ago, I got to watch a couple of leaders who know something about how to get all of those moving parts moving in the same direction while always staying focused on the North Star, which is to make opportunity available for everybody.

Both of them rolled up their sleeves and got creative about what they could do to make a difference for Detroit during a moment of great challenge.

Both of them have given a lot of thought to what that experience means to other parts of the country and to our common future.

I'm excited that they're both here to have a fireside chat with us tonight to talk about what it was like to do their part for Detroit during tough times and what they've learned from doing that work.

You know one of them pretty well, Kresge's own remarkable president, Rip Rapson, whose quiet style and deep expertise I admire greatly.

And yeah, you can clap for Rip.

(audience cheers and claps) The other guy is someone I think you also know pretty well, whose work has made an incalculable difference to this city, this nation and the planet.

In a time of great challenge, he rescued the auto industry, brought the country out of a deep recession and made it possible for more than 20 million people to access healthcare.

And he was just getting started.

(audience cheers and claps) I was proud to have the privilege of serving on his team for eight years.

Ladies and gentlemen, here to have a little fireside chat with us are the Kresge Foundation President, Rip Rapson, and the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama.

(audience cheers and claps) (gentle groovy music) - Yes, we can.

Hey, Detroit!

(audience cheers) It's good to be back in Detroit.

- I'm not gonna say anything and just let him talk.

(laughs) You know this is pretty much the reception I get at my Monday morning staff meeting.

(audience laughs) So it's very cool.

I can't tell you what a privilege, what a pleasure, what an honor it is to have someone without whom we simply would not be sitting here today.

- Yes!

- We simply would not.

(audience cheers and claps) - Thank you.

Well, look, first of all, I wanna say congratulations to Kresge for not just this celebration of the history of this incredible foundation, but the mark you've made on Detroit and that you're still making.

And so I could not be prouder of the work that you've been doing.

I must confess, as much as I like Rip, the main reason I'm here is 'cause Cecelia Munoz said, you need to be here.

(audience laughs and claps) And you should know, I like embarrassing her, every opportunity I get, that Cecelia, who was my domestic policy advisor, worked in intergovernmental affairs, handled some of the toughest issues in my administration, is one of the best people I know, and I know a lot of people.

And you guys are blessed to have her as a board chair.

I was telling Rip before we were introduced, her only flaw is she's a little maniacal about Michigan football.

(audience laughs) And look, go blue, all that.

I'm just saying, (audience laughs) (Rip laughs) she overdoes it.

And you know, fortunately I was not with her when Michigan won the National Championship.

I do not know how she responded, but I'm sure you did not wanna be too close.

- Yeah, no, it was not pretty.

- It wasn't pretty.

- It was not pretty.

Well, we're gonna circle back to Detroit, if that's okay.

But let me start by just noting that when you first ran for president, you did an unusual thing, sort of an audacious thing.

You went to the US Conference of Mayors and gave a talk, essentially making the case for the power of cities to be economic engines, centers of vitality, centers of culture.

That's not always something someone running for public office nationally does.

And yet here we are 15 years later, cities are in a very different place.

It's a complicated time for cities.

Would you make the same case today as you did way back then?

- Absolutely, my belief then and my belief now is that cities are a catalyst, they are an engine, in part because they bring together all the different strands of our society and our country.

And it's that mix of the people with different backgrounds and different ideas and different insights, and those ideas collide, and that creates something new and it creates something vital, and it creates energy and innovation.

And so cities are more important than ever.

Now I think the thing that I would also say today, and it's more true now than ever, it is vital for us to bridge some of the divides between cities, suburbs, rural communities.

Because part of what has happened since I took office is the acceleration of globalization, meant that a disproportionate amount of growth happened in cities.

A lot of other communities felt left behind as cities pulled in resources.

That may sound strange for a city like Detroit that felt it going the opposite direction.

But when you look globally and when you look across the country, wages, incomes, jobs, growth centered a lot on cities.

That brought its own problems.

Things like housing affordability, congestion, et cetera.

But it also meant that growth became really uneven.

And that contributed to some of the polarization that we see in the society today.

So it is important for us to understand cities as being vital for the health of all the surrounding communities, but you have to be intentional about creating bridges, coalitions so that everybody feels as if they're part of that growth and everybody feels invested in cities, even if they don't necessarily live inside the cities.

And we haven't always gotten that part of it right.

And it has manifested itself in some of the, how would I put it, odd politics that we see today.

(audience laughs) - Odd?

(chuckles) - Yeah, odd.

- Yeah, odd.

- Yeah, the problematic politics that we see today.

- Well, you know, given that optimism and view of cities, you probably would've been justified in asking for a hall pass when you first took a look at Detroit, in the beginning of your term.

I mean, this was a convergence of terribles, right?

We had the automobile industry going into bankruptcy, the foreclosure crisis, the recession.

We had the mayor and most of his colleagues headed to the penitentiary.

I mean, this was a tough time.

And yet you and your administration put a unequivocal stake in the ground about Detroit's future.

And it wasn't just the automotive mobile task force, it was Ray LaHood helping us launch a light rail program.

It was Shaun Donovan launching the strong city, strong communities program just down the street.

It was treasury, seconding Don Graves here, it was Gene Sperling assembling a package that permitted us to exit the bankruptcy in a productive way.

So why'd you do it?

(Obama and Rip laughs) (audience laughs) - Even if people didn't recognize the interconnections, those of us in the White House who were managing a lot of fires, putting out a lot of fires at that time, because the crisis was global.

And so in between meetings about Detroit, we're having meetings about China and we're having meetings about, you know, how we deal with the Greek financial crisis.

And so we recognized that if Detroit doesn't bounce back, the auto industry doesn't bounce back, but also Detroit as a city does not bounce back.

That will have ripple effects across the region, across Michigan, across neighboring states.

In the same way that part of the imperative of saving the auto industry was that the supply chains, the restaurants who depended on workers who, you know, once they got off work, were going to eat, main streets.

It had so many ripple effects, we had to get that right.

Well, that was true of the city of Detroit as well.

And we were fortunate that we had some local actors, like Kresge, that could help us organize the city internally, some key institutional pillars that we could then partner with.

Mayor Duggan then came in, and congratulations to him for having exactly the attitude that the city needed at that point, which was non-ideological, blocking, tackling, fixing street lamps, you know, getting abandoned, dangerous buildings, you know, pulled down, revitalizing with the limited resources that the city had, you know, parts of the city that really needed help.

And our basic theory, which was consistent with my general view of effective politics, was change is not just bequeathed top-down.

It is organizing people who have a stake, getting them to feel as if they're all rowing in the same direction, and then partnering with the federal government and government generally in order to make things happen.

And that's what we were able to do here.

And I could not have been prouder of the progress that was made.

Now I think everybody here, including you, Rip, would acknowledge there's still more progress to be done.

- Yeah.

- Detroit's challenges had built up over decades.

I mean, it's not as if they started in 2007, 2008.

- Right.

- You're looking at 30, 40 years of disinvestment and, you know, racial conflict and, you know, decisions that were often made from outside the city that made it more difficult for residents of the city to access opportunity.

And some of those legacies still exist today.

But what you are seeing here in this city is a testament to the capacity of people of goodwill working together and local institutions, like Kresge, taking some risks and making some investments, strategic investments and calculated risks, but being willing to plant a flag.

And people converge around that, and it creates a sense of hope and momentum.

And you can see it as we're, you know, as we were driving around the city today, and met with some of the local leaders here.

Now I did wanna point out that it helps when the weather's really good.

(audience laughs) The same is true in Chicago.

You know, it's like when it's sunny and 70, funny how your mood improves compared to the middle of February and there's sludge on the ground.

(both laugh) - Well, talking about Chicago, Chicago is just enormously blessed at this point to be watching come up out of the ground, the Obama Presidential Center.

(audience cheers and claps) - Yeah, for those of you who haven't visited it, put it on your near-term bucket list.

It is just remarkable.

Not only are there interactive state-of-the-art educational exhibits, beautifully designed and executed gardens, a branch of the public library system, knock your socks off recreational center just broke ground.

It really does hold the potential to transform the South Side there like Detroit.

I mean, there are so many assets and so many things to work with on the South Side, but given all of the ways in which this center tries to carry forward all of the issues you worked on in your public service, democracy, climate, citizen engagement, youth leadership, what is your sort of highest aspiration for the center?

What gives you confidence that its aspiration and hope will take hold and succeed?

- Well, let me step back and just give you a sense of how I've been thinking about the Obama Foundation and the Presidential Center as a part of that.

So when I, about six months before I'm leaving office, I start thinking, all right, what's my next act?

Michelle and I have conversations.

I am, although she reminds me I'm significantly older than her.

(audience laughs and claps) And, you know, so we're thinking, you know, there's only so much I can do to improve my golf game.

Let's see what else I'm gonna do.

There are a host of issues I care about, right?

I care about climate change.

I care about the criminal justice system and making it function fairly.

I care about healthcare, obviously, thanks, Obama.

(audience laughs and claps) I care about early childhood education and all kinds of issues around international development and gender equity and civil rights.

So all these issues individually, I'm thinking to myself where I can make a contribution, advance the cause, I will do so, but there are a lot of people who are working on those issues.

The thing I thought might be my highest best use, the thing that I probably could do fairly uniquely, me and Michelle, Michelle and I, (audience laughs) speaking of education.

(audience laughs) I was elected president because a bunch of 20 and 23 and 25-year olds decided to go out and knock on doors.

(audience cheers and claps) And somebody on your staff just told me, you know, yeah, 2008, I was working in Michigan, you know, the implication being, you know, I was 19.

(audience laughs) And, you know?

And so I thought if I can help connect, train, inspire, mobilize, give resources to shine a spotlight on the next generation of leadership, if I can help those folks who are already beginning to work at local levels, in some cases at national levels, on these issues and help them scale and help guide where they needed guidance, then that would be my greatest legacy, because folks would just keep on going well after I was gone.

And that's cooler than just having a mausoleum.

I was too young for that.

So that's what the Obama Foundation's focus is, right?

Our goal is how do we inspire, train, connect the next generation leadership to change the world?

How do we create a new crop of folks who are out there making change happen?

We've been running those programs for the last seven years.

They are national and international in scope.

We have programs like My Brother's Keeper that are specifically targeted at demographics that really need that extra boost, in that case, young men of color.

We have programs like Girls Opportunity Alliance that are focused on women and girls, making sure that they're getting the same access to opportunity as boys are.

We've got programs targeting college students who are interested in public service, and we provide scholarships and we also then provide training and opportunities for them to go out and explore potential careers in public service.

And then we've got a leadership cohort between the ages of 25 and 35, 40.

That includes doctors who've set up health clinics to deal with the opioid crisis and you know, members of parliament in France who are combating, you know, anti-immigrant sentiment, folks who are running reentry programs for ex-offenders in Oakland, business leaders who are developing new clean energy strategies.

And so we bring them together and we work with them.

That's what we're doing programmatically.

Now, my theory then is also if I'm gonna do all these programs, might as well have the presidential center actually do something and that it can be a hub, a center for all that activity that we're doing.

And if we locate it on the South Side of Chicago, where I first became a community organizer, I was first elected to office, where I met Michelle, where she grew up, where we got married, where our kids were born, a community with enormous assets and talent.

But for those of you who know Chicago, so often feels left behind relative to the North Side and downtown.

If we could do that, then not only could we create sort of a campus for social change, but we could also create this engine for opportunity and economic development on the South Side.

And so that's what we're doing.

And for those of you who, you know, Rip just said you should visit, it's not open yet.

(audience laughs) COVID contractors, you know, shockingly, there were some cost overruns.

(audience laughs) I know that rarely happens in construction, because usually folks always hit their bid exactly right.

But we'll be open soon, and this is gonna be a living, breathing institution that gives young people in Chicago and leaders in Chicago, exposes them to the entire world and exposes the world to them.

So we've got world-class artists who are, you know, people like Maya Lin who did the Vietnam Memorial, or Mark Bradford, one of the most renowned painters, African American, one of the most renowned painters in the world doing art exhibits there and pieces, permanent installations.

We've got a music studio where we can get Jay-Z or Springsteen to come and talk to young people about telling stories through music.

You know, we've got the capacity to an auditorium where we can attract speakers, performers, theater.

And then, of course, there's, like, Michelle's dresses and things like that, that y'all, (audience laughs) I know some of you, that's what you'll be going there to see.

(audience claps) And then, of course, but part of what we're gonna be doing is we want this to be a living, active classroom meeting place, convening space for people who wanna seize the opportunity to make a difference.

And that, I think, combined with our presence in a community that really needs it, it then becomes a laboratory in which, you know, we might have, you know, a head of state come and speak.

But first, they're gonna meet with a bunch of kids from Hyde Park High School to talk about, you know, issues that affect them.

And to hear from those young people so that they have a sense of, oh, you know, I'm not isolated.

I'm important, I'm seen.

And one of the things that we've also been able to do, and I know that Kresge, you guys just said, congratulations on the new train station out here with all that.

(audience claps) And I know a lot of people worked on that, but when you have a big project like that, that's a lot of jobs.

And one of the things we're really proud of is how our work site looked like the community was in.

We were able to negotiate with the unions so that we've got apprenticeship programs.

You've got not only incredible diversity in the workforce in terms of African Americans, Latinos, but you also had women, you know, in record numbers working on the site, creating new apprenticeship programs.

Now as we start thinking about the restaurant there, you've got local businesses who are now able to be part of this.

We can partner with local schools to think about the culinary arts.

And that kind of virtuous cycle, I think, is part of what we wanna create, not just for Chicago.

What you discover is that if you get something right in a city, particularly, you know, inner city portions of cities, and you shine a light and it turns out, okay, look at this amazing thing that's happening with local talent, local resources, that sends a message of hope.

People in other cities start thinking, well, maybe we can do that too.

You start getting investors thinking, hey, this is possible.

And you know, at a time when, right now, everybody is so often cynical about our capacities to come together.

If we can model how communities at every level can connect, and this presidential center can be a beacon for that, then I figure it'll be worth all the pain and suffering I've had to go through to get it done, so.

(Rip laughs) (audience laughs and claps) - Just as a small footnote, the president came to Michigan to get his architects, Billy Williams, and the design is phenomenal.

I'm the son of an architect and just watching the way the buildings flow, I mean, you're absolutely right.

It's gonna sort of invite people in, pull them outside into the gardens, the open space, the convening spaces.

It's really extraordinary.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You don't need me to tell you that, but it's really inspiring.

- Thank you, thank you.

- If I can stay on the topic of young people for just a moment.

I'm the father of two young people seeking to make their way in the world.

I think they're in the front row there.

My son, Avery, is trying to make electronic music in LA.

My daughter, Anna, is gonna go off tomorrow morning to graduate school and design.

And I worry, yeah.

- Congratulations, good luck.

- Hey, hey.

(laughs) And I worry about it, you know, I worry about them.

But when I look at your daughters, they seem to be thriving.

I mean, you've got one who's building a fabulous film career in LA, another who's just graduated from college.

And so, you know, from one father to another, should I be worrying less or maybe more, huh?

- You know, the best insight or the saying that best captures, I think, what parenthood is like, and the parents out here, y'all will appreciate that.

It's basically like having your heart outside your body, walking around, driving, getting on planes.

(audience laughs) (Rip laughs) You know, and you're just like, oh, and you wanna stuff 'em back in your chest, but you can't, so you suffer.

(audience laughs) - Hello?

(chuckles) (audience laughs) - And it turns out, no, it doesn't go away.

You take great pride, and I'm sure you do with your kids, I do with mine, in how they've turned into these amazing human beings.

And Michelle gets the lion's share of credit for that.

My mother-in-law, who recently just passed, who I loved dearly, she gets a lot of credit for it, as I described sort of our child rearing organization.

Michelle was management, I was labor.

(Rip laughs) (audience laughs) And I kind of did what I was told.

So they've turned into wonderful people.

And it's less accomplishments than it is.

They're kind and they're not entitled, and they work hard and they believe in giving back.

And they're funny.

So that I think you can take satisfaction.

I suspect once they get into their 20s, you know, you're like, whew, you know, and they like you again.

And it's great.

(Rip laughs) (audience laughs) The basic terror of them just wandering around on earth without you following them, making sure that they're safe.

That doesn't seem to go away, sadly.

I don't know what to tell you about that.

But here's what I can say, and this is part of what inspired our strategy around the foundation.

You know, when I was president, I began the practice, in part because of the nature of my campaign and the amazing contributions young people made to the campaign.

I was elected because of kids.

And I would organize town halls whenever I had time in any country that we visited.

And we had town halls just with young people.

In Buenos Aires, in Johannesburg, in Ho Chi Minh City, in, you know, in Germany.

We would organize these town halls, and I would just take questions.

And it was rare in some of these countries for their own head of state to be interacting with young people, much less the president of the United States coming in.

And it was so in invigorating for me and inspiring for me, because what you realized was you've got a generation that is as sophisticated, innovative, imaginative, a generation that instinctively believes in equality and treating people the same, that are one of the benefits.

I'm happy to talk about the downsides, but one of the benefits of social media and the global internet is they're sampling from every culture.

And they're not afraid of difference.

They instinctively understand the need to be good stewards of the planet.

And you'd see it across borders, like the kids in Ann Arbor, the kids in, you know, Ankara, Turkey, the kids in Ghana.

They had this shared sensibility.

And that, I think, gives me hope, that you can feel good about.

(audience claps) Now, the thing I noticed about these young people, and this is probably even more true today than it was during my presidency.

They were cynical and, in some cases, enraged by how they saw existing institutions failing to deal with problems.

So they're cynical about politics, they're cynical about media, they're cynical about a lot of the existing institutional arrangements and the injustices and inequalities they produce.

And like, it's natural for young people to be impatient.

So they're a little outraged.

And sometimes that expresses itself in protests or hashtags or this or that, but they didn't always feel like they knew, well, how do I go about even making a difference in dealing with these overwhelming problems?

And so part of our job, those of us who are now, as Michelle describes it, old, (audience laughs) referring to me, is to give them some formulas, some platforms, some understandings of how they can change these institutions, make them work for today's problems, for today's opportunities, for today's realities.

And then we gotta get out of the way.

And that I think is the challenge.

The problem is not young people, sometimes they're young, so they do stupid things and they make mistakes, like I did.

Not as many dumb stupid things as old people have done, but they'll make 'em.

But you have to give them a sense that they have agency over the issues that are determining their lives.

And that I think is where hope translates into action, which is one of the core principles of what we try to instill at the foundation.

- That's a beautiful answer, and we are pretty much out of time.

But I'm wondering if I might just ask you briefly to reflect a little bit on Kresge.

It's a little unfair to ask you this, but you know, we've been around for 100 years.

We've done the kind of investing that we hope improves the condition of humanity.

And I think we believe that philanthropy is at its best when it sort of shape shifts, when it responds to changing circumstances and serves as social venture capital, taking risks, you know, pulls out a bunch of tools from its toolbox, applies them differently, and fundamentally has a ground wire into community-based equity and justice.

But, you know, we now turn the corner to the next phase of our existence.

Do you have a word or two of advice for the Kresge Foundation?

- Yeah, keep doing what you're doing.

(audience laughs and claps) What you just described as how philanthropy should operate.

And what I think has been exciting about Kresge is it hasn't always played it safe, because it does have to adapt to new circumstances and new opportunities.

You know, look, I think that too often philanthropies are cautious, because in some cases, out of good motives, we wanna be good stewards of the money that's been bequeathed to us.

We wanna make sure that it's not being wasted.

But over time, what can happen is is it becomes stale.

It becomes brittle.

It funds the same things over and over again, because they know, you know what, if I give to that hospital or I give to that university, nobody's gonna yell at me.

And what Kresge's been willing to do is to say, we'll take some calculated risks and we're gonna use these resources to jumpstart people coming together to change their surroundings.

And we need more of that.

You know, before I came here today, I guess was my sort of philanthropy day.

'Cause I was speaking in Chicago to a group of family foundations that had gathered together.

And these are family foundations of families who've got a lot of disposable income, a lot of wealth.

And I said to them, you know, one of the benefits of being president is you have this amazing vantage point to see, across the landscape, people of every walk of life, people in every circumstance, the highs and the lows and the variety of lives that are led on this planet.

And those of us who have so much, the least we can do is to take some risks on behalf of those who don't.

(audience claps) Because the one thing, you know, I've said this to my daughters, I think they've internalized it.

People who are really successful, who don't attribute about 90% of it to luck and other people helping them along the way, aren't that bright to me.

Or at least aren't that wise.

(audience laughs and claps) Because, you know, I've never actually tried to calculate the odds that a mixed kid in Hawaii with a funny name would end up being the ex-president of the United States.

(audience laughs) But I think it's really small, those odds.

(Rip laughs) (audience laughing) And so I'm constantly mindful of that.

But we have a lot.

And the thing is, we can afford to take some calculated risks on behalf of people who have no margin for error.

(audience claps) And who are having a tough time making ends meet every single day.

And I think Kresge has understood that.

And that's, by the way, a tribute to the Kresge family, which I know, I was talking to Cecelia about it.

(audience claps) She describes as extraordinarily low key.

So much of philanthropy too often ends up being more about, you know, look at me.

And that's not how the Kresge family has thought about this.

That's not how the staff has thought about this.

Yeah, you guys are on, you know, you don't need advice.

You just need to thank you, so thank you.

Appreciate you, guys.

God bless.

- Thank you.

(audience cheers and claps) (gentle groovy music) - [Emcee] Direct from the NFL draft, their own Disney Plus TV series and the Nairobi International Choir Festival in Nairobi, Kenya.

Please welcome the world-renowned Detroit Youth Choir.

(audience cheers and claps) (gentle groovy music) - Hey, Detroit, how you doing?

(audience whooping and clapping) Happy 100th anniversary, Kresge, we love you.

(bright melodic music) These are tough times we live in, but we still can't give in.

We must stand tall and live strong.

It's up to our youth to carry on.

- And carry this torch we pass down.

You see, I know it's not the last round.

In the next generation, my faith is a unwavering.

♪ Ooh, I ♪ Ooh, I ♪ I see that you want it ♪ Want it ♪ I see that you're looking for it ♪ ♪ So don't take no days off, it's gonna pay off ♪ ♪ I see that you love it ♪ Love it ♪ I want you to know that before you can see it ♪ ♪ You gotta believe it ♪ You're the generation of tomorrow ♪ ♪ But the pursuit starts today ♪ But all the time is borrowed ♪ So you have no other way ♪ You are not, I repeat ♪ You are not put on this Earth to lose ♪ ♪ And you are hot, I repeat ♪ That you are hot, so do what you do ♪ ♪ And we gon' do it big ♪ We gon' make a scene ♪ We gon' make a scene ♪ We gon' take the doubters ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ We gon' be the change that we wanna see ♪ ♪ We're not taking average ♪ Taking average ♪ Chasing legend status ♪ We can have the world, we can have it all ♪ ♪ Nothing is too big, nothing is too small ♪ ♪ We can be the change that we wanna see ♪ ♪ We're not taking average, chasing legend status ♪ ♪ Ooh, nah-nah ♪ I see that it's in your heart ♪ ♪ I see that it's in your heart ♪ ♪ I feel it ♪ I can feel your desire ♪ Your desire ♪ It only takes one spark, it only takes one spark, yeah ♪ ♪ To set it on fire ♪ On fire ♪ Ooh, ooh ♪ You're the generation of tomorrow ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh ♪ But the work starts today ♪ Ooh, ooh ♪ When all time is borrowed ♪ Ooh, ooh ♪ So you have no other way ♪ And you are not, I repeat ♪ You are not put on this Earth ♪ ♪ To lose ♪ Lose ♪ And you are hot, I repeat it ♪ That you are hot, so do what you do ♪ ♪ And we gon' do it big ♪ Big ♪ We gon' make a scene ♪ Scene ♪ We gon' take the doubters ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ We gon' be the change that we wanna see ♪ ♪ That we wanna see ♪ We're not taking average ♪ Chasing legend status ♪ We can have the world ♪ We can have the world ♪ We can have it all ♪ We can have it all ♪ Nothing is too big ♪ Nothing is too big ♪ Nothing is too small ♪ Nothing is too small ♪ We can be the change ♪ We can be the change ♪ That we wanna see ♪ That we wanna see ♪ We're not taking average, chasing legend status ♪ ♪ You can have anything you want ♪ ♪ But I know the work must still be done ♪ ♪ It must still be done ♪ The power to change the world is in your own hands ♪ ♪ Just believe that you can ♪ Nothing but a reason to stay asleep ♪ ♪ You gotta wake up ♪ You gotta wake up ♪ Make a decision ♪ Life is for the living ♪ And it's yours but you gotta go get it ♪ ♪ We gon' do it big ♪ Do it big ♪ We gon' make a scene ♪ Yeah ♪ We gon' take the doubters ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ Make 'em all believe ♪ We gon' be the change that we wanna see ♪ ♪ We're not taking average ♪ Chasing legend status ♪ We can have the world ♪ We can have the world ♪ We can have it all ♪ We can have it all ♪ Nothing is too big ♪ Nothing is too big ♪ Nothing is too small ♪ Nothing is too small ♪ We can be the change ♪ We can be the change ♪ That we wanna see ♪ Ooh ♪ We're not taking average, chasing legend status ♪ ♪ We gon' do it big, yeah, oh-whoa ♪ ♪ All we gotta do is do it ♪ All you gotta do is do your bit ♪ ♪ Nothing, nothing, nothing can stop us now ♪ ♪ Yeah (audience cheers and claps) - And does it get any better than President Obama?

(audience cheers and claps) And one more time for Thornetta, Cecelia, Rip, President Obama and the Detroit Youth Choir.

And give yourselves a round of applause as well.

You were so great.

(audience claps) And we're grateful to each and every one of you for joining us tonight for this incredible program here in the gorgeous Detroit Film Theater at the DIA.

Now, as we prepare to move upstairs to the party, we are graced to have the Gabriel Brass Band.

Now this band connects two of Kresge's focus cities, our hometown of Detroit and New Orleans.

(audience whooping) The Motor City and the Big Easy spreading the fun, the funk, and the gospel of the second line wherever they go.

Thank you for being here tonight.

And now, (speaks in French).

Let the good times roll!

(audience cheering and clapping) (funky brass music) (funky brass music continues) (bright piano music)