Not Your Sweetie

Clinton Presidential Library Begins Trend in Little Rock's Revitalization

AP
Suddenly, downtown
Little Rock is booming.

Concrete and steel now
rise at the foot of newly named
President Clinton
Avenue, where the Clinton Presidential Center
is scheduled to open
next year. The center's construction, with
its $160 million price
tag, has also spurred commitments for $700
million in other
downtown projects.

Little Rock developer
Rett Tucker said property values in the
area have doubled since
1998, the year after Bill Clinton said he
would build his library
here. An area once boarded up and
written off as a
warehouse wasteland has become the booming
River Market district,
dotted with hotels, restaurants, bars and
shops.

Clinton's aim to use
his presidential library to transform a world
beset with racial and
religious strife starts is already benefiting a
city once equated with bigotry and segregation,
developers and proponents said.



Forty-five years ago, Little Rock was an
international symbol of intolerance. After Gov. Orval
Faubus directed National Guard troops to keep
nine black children out of Little Rock Central High
School, President Eisenhower sent in federal
troops to enforce a court's integration order.

The event came to symbolize the beginning of the
federal government's commitment to
desegregation. Clinton plans to build on that
model, and develop ways to bridge boundaries
worldwide, with his museum and academic complex.

In 12 years as Arkansas governor and eight years
as president, Clinton constantly courted the
black community. In the White House, he set up a
number of offices and panels to improve race
relations and made a number of trips to Africa
and has since set up an office in Harlem.

He now is so highly revered among blacks that he
recently became the first non-black
recognized as an honorary inductee to the
Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Author Toni Morrison
once described him as "our first black
president."

Library planners say they are excited to be part
of Little Rock's renewal.

"Clinton may have left the presidency but he
didn't leave the public's interest," Clinton Foundation
president Skip Rutherford added. "There's just
enormous interest in this guy and all of that is
good for the library. In large part, it's been a
key factor in transforming the city."

--