OKLAHOMA CITY — Thirty years after the deadliest homegrown attack in U.S. history, former President Bill Clinton will return to Oklahoma City on Saturday to remember the people who were killed and comfort those affected by the bombing.
Clinton was president on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb exploded, destroying a nine-story federal building in downtown Oklahoma City. He will deliver the keynote address at a remembrance ceremony near the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.
Clinton, now 78, was widely praised for how he helped the city grapple with its grief in the wake of the bombing, which killed 168 people, including 19 children. He says it was a day in his presidency that he will never forget.
“The nation’s eyes were there. The nation’s heart was broken there,” Clinton said in a video statement posted to the Clinton Foundation website. “I was privately praying that I would find the right words, the right tone, the right rhythm to somehow get into the mind and heart of as many Americans as possible.”
Clinton has visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum several times in the years since the bombing and delivered speeches on major anniversaries.
Among the memorial’s top missions is to help people understand the senselessness of political violence and teach a new generation about the impact of the bombing, said Kari Watkins, the memorial’s president and CEO.
“We knew when we built this place we would some day reach a generation of people who weren’t born or who didn’t remember the story,” Watkins said. “I think now, not just kids are coming through more and more, but teachers who are teaching those kids.”
Saturday’s ceremony, scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., was originally scheduled to take place on the grounds of the memorial but has been moved inside an adjacent church because of inclement weather.