The "place called Hope" that a misty-eyed Bill Clinton used to sell his vision for America during his first presidential run is hoping the public's interest in its most famous son can lift its sagging fortunes.
The former president returns to Hope on Saturday for a ceremony marking his boyhood home's listing on the National Park Service's registry of historic sites. The home, the first of two in Hope that he lived in, was turned into a museum in 1997, but civic leaders and business owners are optimistic that the prestigious listing will send needed tourism their way.
The quaint community Clinton described while accepting his party's 1992 presidential nomination is gone, if it ever really existed. The town's name today belies the serious problems Hope faces, including a downtown pocked with shuttered storefronts and crumbling buildings, and a poor, undereducated population that's barely grown in 60 years.
During his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Party convention, The Man From Hope, as he was billed, spoke of developing early notions of fairness and equality while living with his mother and grandparents in their two-story home on South Hervey Street, which the Clinton Birthplace Foundation has restored to its 1940s and 1950s appearance, replete with period wallpaper and artifacts that give it a time capsule feel.
"When I think about opportunity for all Americans, I think a
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