Area Erectors, a structural steel subcontractor, says it's owed $620,000 for work on the Obama Presidential Center's Home Court — a 60,000-square-foot basketball and events facility in Chicago. The company filed a mechanics lien. So did two other subcontractors. Total tab: nearly $900,000.

The center was supposed to uplift the community. Apparently the community's invoices weren't part of the mission statement.

Three subcontractors have now filed unpaid claims against the Obama Presidential Center project. Area Erectors handled structural steel. CSI 3000, an excavation and concrete subcontractor, filed for $236,000. Floors Incorporated, a gymnasium flooring specialist, is owed $25,000. All three performed work on the Home Court facility. All three say they haven't been paid.

The construction was managed by Lakeside Alliance, with Elevate Design Builders — a joint venture led by BOWA Construction, a minority-owned firm — handling portions of the work. So we've got a project built by minority-owned contractors and blue-collar tradesmen, championed by a former president who spent eight years lecturing the country about income inequality, and the guys who actually poured the concrete and raised the steel are filing liens to get their money.

Barack Obama built a political career on the backs of working people. Turns out that wasn't just a figure of speech.

The mechanics lien is the last resort of a contractor who's done the work and can't get paid. It's not a frivolous legal maneuver. It's a public filing that says: I built this thing, and the people who hired me won't pay me for it.

Now, defenders will note that payment disputes happen on large construction projects all the time. But most large construction projects aren't named after a man who gave approximately 4,000 speeches about fair wages and workers' dignity. Most construction projects don't come wrapped in press releases about community investment and economic empowerment. When your entire brand is "I fight for the little guy," you don't get to shrug when the little guy files a lien.

The Obama Presidential Center was pitched as a transformative investment in Chicago's South Side — a project that would create jobs, lift local businesses, and prove that powerful institutions could give back to the neighborhoods that made them possible. The foundation held community meetings. They made promises about local hiring. They talked about equity and inclusion and opportunity.

$620,000 in unpaid structural steel. $236,000 in unpaid excavation and concrete. $25,000 in unpaid flooring. That's the equity. That's the inclusion.

When the monument to your legacy is built on unpaid labor, the legacy writes itself.