By Sara Oppenheimer
For HDMedia
Two Charleston natives earned permanent recognition on the Obama Presidential Center’s Worker Appreciation Wall — ahead of its Thursday dedication — for their work with the Obama Foundation.
Darius Booker, 31, and Jihad Dixon, 30, lifelong friends raised in Charleston, are featured in the center’s Worker Appreciation Wall, a tribute to 4,500 employees and partners’ collective effort to the center’s creation, according to the Foundation, which was established by former President Barack and Michelle Obama.
“It boils down to honor,” Booker said. “We weren’t able to vote for President Obama either time because of our age, but we still get to be part of his legacy. That’s an honor.”
The Obama Presidential Center, which opens Friday in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, will serve as a museum, library, and civic center focused on leadership development and community engagement in Chicago.
Officials at the OPC could not be reached for comment.
Dixon works as a senior strategy and operations associate with the “My Brother’s Keeper” Alliance, a leadership program under the Obama Foundation since 2022. He works to introduce partnerships between the Alliance and local community organizers. Booker worked for the Foundation from 2023 to 2025 as an event coordinator. While both met Barack Obama multiple times, neither reported personal ties with the former president.
“Even when I’m not directly working with young people, I’m working for young people and making sure that they can be better than me,” Dixon said. “I’m working to change the lives of those who come after us.”
Booker and Dixon first met at the age of 5 while attending St. Anthony’s Catholic School in Charleston. Both served in the first cohort of the Communities Closing the Gap Out-of-School Time Program, a mentorship program run by the Charleston-based Partnership of African American Churches.
Though they no longer live in Charleston, the duo still find ways to support the West Virginia communities that supported them, visiting and donating to the Closing The Gap program periodically, according to Dixon.
“We grew up spending so much time at the King Center,” said Booker, referring to the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in downtown Charleston.
“Coming back just feels full circle. I want people to look at us and say, ‘If they could do it, I could definitely do it,’” Booker said. “It’s all about reaching back and pulling someone forward.”
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