(CHICAGO) — Ahead of the groundbreaking of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, former President Barack Obama reflected on the gun violence that has plagued the Windy City and said that he intends for his presidential library to be a part of the solution.

“Chicago alone can’t solve the gun problem,” Obama told “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview that aired on Tuesday, adding that Congress needs to pass “common sense gun safety measures.”

Gun reform efforts were repeatedly blocked by Republicans during Obama’s presidency and continue to stall in Congress.

President Joe Biden announced a series of executive orders in April aimed at addressing gun violence and called on the Senate to pass a pair of gun reform bills adopted by the Democratic-led House, including a ban on assault weapons.

“Chicago alone can’t stop the easy access and flood of guns into these communities. But what we can do is potentially give young people the sense that there’s another way for them to empower themselves, other than wielding a gun,” Obama said.

Reflecting on violent crime in low-income communities in cities like Chicago, Obama said, “The constant is young people, mostly young men, who have not gotten a good education, don’t have a good opportunity, are not seeing good role models, are living in neighborhoods that are frayed and fractured.”

A total of at least 2,688 shooting incidents have happened in Chicago this year, an 11% increase from the same period as last year, according to police department crime statistics. The city has recorded 602 homicides this year — a 4% increase from 2020.

Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown announced a new strategy to combat gun violence in July which includes a crackdown on illegal guns pouring into the city.

Obama said that tackling the problem is a “generational project” — one that he intends to address through Obama Presidential Center programs like My Brother’s Keeper, which works to create opportunities for boys and men of color in underserved communities.

“If we’re doing that in a systemic way, year after year, then over time, we can reduce these incidents of violence,” he added.

Other major cities across the U.S. are also grappling with a rise in shootings.

President Joe Biden announced a range of actions in June aimed at curbing gun violence, saying that violent crime has “spiked since the start of the pandemic.”

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson, Rick Klein, Quinn Owen, Katie Bosland, Mya Green and Danielle Genet contributed to this report.

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(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — After years of allegations and legal battles, a swift decision was made in a Brooklyn courtroom Monday to convict singer R. Kelly on eight counts of sex trafficking and one count of racketeering charges.

Lisa Van Allen, who testified against the R&B singer, and Tamra Simmons, executive producer of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” joined “Good Morning America” Tuesday in an exclusive interview following the singer’s guilty verdict.

“We were crying because — I think everybody was just shocked,” Simmons said of the initial moments following the decision. “These women, these survivors, these men that testified, I just am so thankful that — black women’s voices are now being able to be heard.”

“These women are like heroes to me — they helped show that we are human, you know, and that black women don’t have to have superpowers and we don’t have to endure pain and suffering and things like that in order to, you know, say that we’re a strong black woman,” Simmons said. “Like things can happen to us and now we can speak out about it.”

Kelly, 54, could spend the rest of his life in prison for leading what prosecutors alleged was a criminal enterprise, leading an entourage of individuals with the help of his fame to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity.

After years of allegations by multiple accusers fighting for justice, Van Allen told “GMA” she almost cried upon hearing Monday’s verdict.

“This is what I was looking for back in 2008, so I would say that I believe that the difference is this time is that there is power in numbers,” she said.

Van Allen said she believes the allegations from black and minority women were not taken seriously initially because “there wasn’t like a group of us — it would always be one here, one there — they didn’t look deep into it or anything like that and, you know, and I do think still the timing was off.”

Fifty witnesses took the stand over the course of Kelly’s six-week trial, including 11 alleged victims in this case, in which the prosecution asserted that Kelly had encounters with six women.

Simmons’ 2019 documentary, which Van Allen appeared in, brought attention to the R&B singer’s case and helped give them a platform for their voices to be heard, she said.

“These women have been dealing with this for years and actually didn’t want to speak out because, you know, they’re thinking ‘who is going to listen to me? Who is going to believe me?'” Simmons said. “I just knew that if we had eyes on this, that we can’t turn a blind eye anymore and so I think what these women and the families that have gone through this and trusted, you know, our team as producers and understanding that, you know, we’re going to try to find justice for you even if we can’t, we still believe you because a lot of these women just wanted to be heard.”

Lawyers for Kelly, who pleaded not guilty, said the relationships were consensual suggesting the accusers were jilted lovers and fan girls trying to cash in.

“The guilty verdict forever brands R. Kelly as a predator who used his fame and fortune to prey on the young, the vulnerable and the voiceless,” Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Monday following the verdict.

Simmons said Kelly “built this enterprise to be able to lure young women and men [who] he knew would be vulnerable and he basically preyed upon that. And I’m just thankful that now our future daughters and sons no longer, you know, have the possibility of encountering this man and having this done to them.”

R. Kelly is scheduled to be sentenced in May of next year. He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars and up to life in prison.

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(CHICAGO) — The Obama Presidential Center will provide economic investment and opportunities for young people on Chicago’s South Side, President Barack Obama said an interview with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts ahead of the center’s grand opening.

Obama has a personal connection to the area; he said that he first “learned how to work in public service as a community organizer” and announced a run for political office in the South Side.

“But part of it is also because I believe that both here, in America, and around the world, we’re at a critical juncture where we can either go down the path of division and conflict and tribalism and cynicism, or we can pull together and solve big problems,” Obama said. “And a test case is in a city as wealthy as Chicago, in a country as powerful as the United States; is everybody included? And, you know, here on the South Side, there’s young people who are enormously talented, enormously gifted, but often forgotten.”

Those young people on the South Side of Chicago — a predominantly African-American area of the city which has historically faced redlining, divestment and discrimination — are often surrounded by “poverty, crime and drugs,” Obama said.

“And so, for us to be able to build a world-class institution that will attract millions of people and bring billions of dollars of benefits and thousands of jobs into a community that so often is forgotten, [that] hopefully will send a signal that those young people count. Those young people matter,” he added.

Building the center will also help give people from the South Side jobs and train them in professions that can be of use to them in the future, Obama said.

The Obama Presidential Center differs from previous presidential libraries in that it is not run by the National Archives and Records Administration. It will host a branch of the Chicago Public Library, but the records themselves will be digitized and stored elsewhere.

The center’s planning has not been free of controversy; it has previously faced lawsuits over its location in Jackson Park, a public park that is on the National Register of Historic Places and was designed by Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted.

Community activists on the South Side of Chicago have also called on the Obama Foundation and the city of Chicago to ensure current residents are not displaced from nearby neighborhoods through gentrification.

Obama told Roberts he is confident that the center will enhance the park, and that he and the Obama Foundation have “gone through such an exhaustive process” to get community input in developing the establishment.

He had previously said that he did not want to sign agreements with community groups, because he did not think those agreements could represent everyone.

All in all, Obama said he wants the center to send a message of empowerment.

“Ultimately, what we wanna do is empower [people in the community] to do the work where they live in their various communities. And part of the goal of the presidential center is anybody who visits the museum, we want them to come through and, at the end of the museum, we’re gonna be asking them the question, ‘How can you make a contribution?'” Obama told Roberts.

“We wanna be able to say to them, ‘Look, this isn’t about some president over there. This is about citizens like you who could make a difference,'” he added.

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