Former President Bill Clinton will be on hand Friday morning to mark the opening of a new permanent installation at the Clinton Presidential Center, the Anne Frank Tree.
The tree to be planted is a sapling taken from the white horse chestnut tree that stood outside the house in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in World War II. The installation will include five framed etched glass panels — said to evoke the feeling of being in a room — surrounded by landscaping. Panels quote Frank and Clinton and recount human rights events in Arkansas — Japanese-American internment camps, with a quote from George Takei who was interned at Rohwer; the Indian Removal Act, with a quote from Quapaw Chief Heckaton, and the 1957 school desegregation crisis, with a quote from Melba Patilo Beals of the Little Rock Nine.
The 11 a.m. event is by invitation only. Clinton will speak along with representatives of Little Rock’s Congregation B’nai Israel, the Clinton Foundation and the Anne Frank House. School children also will attend.
The Clinton library was one of nine eleven locations chosen nationally for the saplings.