Former President Bill Clinton said a new exhibit that opened Friday at the Clinton Center in Little Rock shows that common humanity matters more than the differences that can divide people.
The outdoor exhibit largely commemorates the life of Anne Frank but also includes human-rights history detailing desegregation in Arkansas and Japanese-American internment.
"Her life is a constant reminder about how even young children can quickly be demonized and marked for death simply because of who they are," Clinton said of Frank.
Clinton said the exhibit serves as a way for future generations to remember the atrocities that occurred to the Jewish population and others during World War II.
"A little girl with brilliant, brilliant talent and a sweet heart gave her life over a stupid difference rooted in one-half of 1 percent of her biological makeup, and so did 6 million more," he said.
During his remarks Friday, Clinton brought the discussion of human rights to more recent tensions abroad and in the United States, including a shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina that left nine people dead.
"We shouldn't have to have a killing to be reminded of our common humanity," he said.
The Clinton Center exhibit features five framed, etched glass panels detailing human-rights events in Arkansas that are surrounded by landscaping at the front of the center.
An Anne Frank Tree sapling taken from a chestnut tree that stood outside the Secret Annex where Frank and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II will be at the center of the exhibit once matured.
A temporary sapling from the Clinton Presidential Center's grounds is currently at the exhibit.
Read Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.