No Limits: 20 Years of the Clinton Presidential Center

What Dr. Chelsea Clinton remembers most about the opening ceremony for the Clinton Presidential Center is what first comes to mind for most of us.

“The rain. Definitely.”

On Nov. 18, 2004, a sea of ponchos and umbrellas packed around a stage as more than 30,000 people showed up, despite the downpour, to watch four U.S. presidents, their respective first ladies and even Bono and The Edge dedicate the new addition to the Little Rock skyline.

As the special guests prepared to walk onto the stage, Clinton, then 24, remembers telling former first lady Rosalynn Carter how sorry she was for the poor weather.

“Then she says, ‘Chelsea, don’t apologize. You can’t decide when it’s going to rain. God decides that,’” Clinton laughs. “And I’ll never forget, she said, ‘Everyone’s going to remember this. It was a sunny day when Jimmy’s library opened, and I don’t know if anybody remembers it.’”

Time proved Carter right, but deluge aside, spirits were hardly dampened as Arkansans on both sides of the aisle were eager to see what the institution would bring to the capital city.

The Clinton Center opened 20 years ago this fall, and it’s been busy ever since. One of only 13 presidential centers in the country, it holds a unique role in not only the day-to-day lives of Little Rock locals, but more broadly across the state and even internationally.

“The Clinton Center is more than just a museum,” says Stephanie S. Streett, executive director of the Clinton Foundation. “For almost 20 years, we have made a positive impact on our community through strategic partnerships; educational and cultural programming; and serving as a catalyst for continued investment in central Arkansas. It’s a place where people from different walks of life and perspectives can come to engage in respectful dialogue to address some of our most pressing challenges in Arkansas and beyond.”

Three organizations operate under the Clinton Center umbrella: the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, the Little Rock offices of the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton School of Public Service, which is a member of the University of Arkansas System.

Locals are often best acquainted with the library, thanks in no small part to its iconic shape and sheen. It serves as the backbone of the center and, as part of the National Archives and Records Administration’s Presidential Library System, its purpose is to preserve documents, records and notable objects from the Clinton administration in hopes that, as former President Bill Clinton said on that rain-soaked stage, visitors “see that public service is noble and important, that the choices and decisions leaders make affect the lives of millions of Americans and people all across the world.”

The library has welcomed millions of visitors, but because of the unchanging nature of the archives, locals often return for the traveling exhibits that come through its halls. There, topics range from pop culture moments like the current display on presidents in film and television, to the 2019 climate-focused art exhibit made of garbage pulled from oceans, to a 2013 deep dive into the life and work of Oscar de la Renta.

The latter was a personal favorite of Clinton’s, who was family friends with the famed designer. But undoubtedly the most meaningful for her was 2012’s “Dorothy Howell Rodham & Virginia Clinton Kelley,” an exhibit dedicated to her grandmothers that included personal possessions and recordings of their voices.

Today, Clinton serves as vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. Though headquartered in New York City, its Little Rock offices’ goals are no less aspirational: “to expand economic opportunity, improve public health, confront the climate crisis and inspire citizen engagement and service.”

Arkansans can see the handiwork of the foundation across their communities, especially in the public health domain, a special interest of Clinton’s. The Overdose Response Network works with local schools and faith and community leaders to increase access to lifesaving resources like the opioid overdose antidote naloxone, and during the worst days of the pandemic, the center became a hub for food deliveries and diaper banks. The foundation’s also been involved in the recent surge of efforts to address disparities in maternal health, especially as Arkansas now ranks worst in the nation for maternal mortality.

“We’re really trying to support multiple efforts across the landscape in Arkansas, but also elsewhere, that are in turn providing the frontline support pregnant and new moms need, while also trying to restore our fundamental human rights,” Clinton says.

In the education sector, the Too Small to Fail program provides access to public learning tools for young kids — think literacy spaces in laundromats, playground signage that encourages conversations — through partnerships with local institutions and businesses, while also providing resources directly to caregivers. Little Rock is one of approximately two dozen cities in the U.S. where these efforts are active.

The foundation has long worked toward women’s equality, which former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton famously called “the unfinished business of the 21st century.” In December 2022, she and Clinton hosted “Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes, Women’s Rights,” a summit that brought international and local experts to the Clinton Center to discuss that unfinished business, alongside a multimedia exhibit exploring the 19th Amendment and women’s suffrage.

With the opportunity to host the summit in her home state with her mother, the event stands as one of Clinton’s favorite memories of the Clinton Center.

“It was incredibly moving,” she says. “It’s hard to be fully participatory in the ways that we want to be in our democracy. And if we’re not also including and platforming and centering women’s voices who have had very different experiences than my mom or I have had, then we’re also not being sufficiently reflective of who we are. I believe hopefully in an ever more equal and inclusive union…

“[Having a broad range of speakers] was really important to us, and also really important to have that conversation in Arkansas rather than really anywhere else.”

A perpetual dilemma in politics and leadership at large is the balance of the future and the now, in trying to solve a current problem while planning for the next one. The third division of the center, the Clinton School, is working on both.

The “brainchild” of President Clinton, the school was the first higher education institution in the nation to offer a master of public service degree and prides itself on “intensive experiential learning” through hands-on community service projects coupled with a traditional classroom setting.

The two-year graduate program is focused on civic engagement not only in leadership, but at every level.

“According to the 2023 Arkansas Civic Health Index report, led by the Clinton School of Public Service, Arkansas ranks last in voter registration and turnout rates in national elections. These results are sobering,” Streett says. “While many of our student programs over the years have focused on civic education, we have taken the results of the study as a clarion call and doubled down our efforts to equip our students with the resources and tools they need to uphold our highest democratic ideals and become engaged citizens.”

The goal is to create problem solvers, both through the school and the nationwide Presidential Leadership Scholars program that meets with past presidents and leaders in various fields. Classes are a mix of political parties and are oriented around pragmatic discussions and solutions in areas of shared purpose, rather than stoking the fast-catching fires of partisan animosity.

“The hypothesis is that if people are given concrete problems with the expectation of working together, and with the baseline that everyone respects one another, that people’s equal humanity and right to be there is not up for debate,” Clinton says.

“Hopefully, participants are able to see the other person’s humanity even if they may have voted differently in the 2020 or 2022 elections, even if they have different understandings of what the best way forward for our country is and different policy positions. They have a shared commitment to ensuring that our best days are ahead, a shared belief in that fundamental optimism of the future and in the ability to solve problems together.”

And there’s plenty of optimism for the future of the Clinton Presidential Center. Its exhibits and lecture series continue to draw in crowds, its public health programs are making a tangible impact, it has a troop of dedicated volunteers and it will build on its civic participation focus both within the Clinton School and with its Student Presidential Leadership Scholars program for high school students.

The center itself is due for an upgrade, too. Plans were announced last summer for a “major expansion” led by Studio Gang, the firm behind the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts redesign, in collaboration with Little Rock’s Polk Stanley Wilcox. The campus featured some of the state’s first LEED-certified buildings, and the new work will follow that pattern of sustainability.

Renovations will bring improved public and event spaces and will be home to the new Hillary Rodham Clinton Institute that will serve as a base for her philanthropic work and personal archives.

“I am thrilled about the upcoming modernization and expansion of the Clinton Center,” Streett says. “It will allow us to introduce a new generation to the Clintons’ life-long commitment to public service while inspiring visitors with a profound and reinvigorated sense of purpose.”

But before the groundbreaking starts, the center has plans for a 20th anniversary bash on Saturday, Dec. 7, with all three Clintons in attendance, the details of which are still in the works.

And before the bash, Clinton will likely do what she often does when she’s in Little Rock: visit the friends and family who shaped her youth, go for a run on the banks of the Arkansas River, then roll up her sleeves and get down to business.

“It’s so important to acknowledge how proud we are of the work that’s been done, but also realize that has to be just the beginning.”

Learn more at clintonpresidentialcenter.org/20.