Incite/CCOHR and the Obama Foundation have partnered to produce the official oral history of the Barack Obama Presidency. The result of this collaboration will be a comprehensive, enduring record of the decisions, actions and impacts of this historic presidency.

Commencing on July 1st, 2019, and expected to take place over five years, the Obama Presidency Oral History will include interviews with 400 people and generate an archive with 1,200 hours of audio and video recordings. Interviewees include cabinet members and policy makers within the administration, as well as politicians, intellectuals, artists, journalists, and other key public figures outside of the White House. Unlike past presidential oral histories, the project will also incorporate over 100 interviews with ‘ordinary citizens’ – individuals whose letters were given to President Obama every night, those he encountered as he traveled the country, and those whose sentences he commuted. The inclusion of these voices will enable the archive to weave recollections of administration officials about critical decisions with the stories and experiences of people touched by those decisions.

As at 2023, we have completed the bulk of our fieldwork and are turning our attention toward creating innovative and accessible programming to bring the project to life in public conversation. On May 31, 2023, we released 17 transcripts related to climate change and the environment to begin rolling out the study.