Former President Barack Obama surprised a group of schoolchildren on the South Side on Tuesday, making a stop at the Bessie Coleman branch of the Chicago Public Library in Woodlawn during his Chicago visit to tour the nearly finished Obama Presidential Center.

A group of two dozen Burke Elementary School students, between kindergarten and second grade, were doing a story time and coloring activity at the library when Obama arrived, wearing a red Santa hat, according to a pool report from the event. (The Obama Foundation allowed only a pool reporter, Shia Kapos of Politico, along with a Chicago Tribune photographer and CBS television camera person to cover the event.)

“Everybody seems to be working hard,” Obama said, according to the pool report. “I thought we were gonna have a little Chr

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