Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum draws visitors after 15 years

Their time is their tribute. They have made a decision to spend time at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, which is dedicated to educating visitors about the impact of violence, informing about events surrounding the bombing, and inspiring hope and healing through lessons learned by those affected.

On April 19, 2000, President Bill Clinton dedicated the outdoor symbolic memorial on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack.

Less than one year later, President George W. Bush dedicated the Memorial Museum, on Feb. 19, 2001. Visitors tour the museum to learn the story of April 19, 1995, and how chaos was transformed into hope and unity in the response to the bombing.

This year, Clinton received the Reflections of Hope Award for his work in helping Oklahoma City transform after the bombing and for international peace work during his presidency and over the past decade.

The Reflections of Hope Award honors a living person or active organization whose conduct exemplifies two core beliefs of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation: that hope can survive and blossom amid the tragedy and chaos of political violence and that, even in environments marred by such violence, peaceful, nonviolent approaches provide the best answers to human problems.

In receiving the award, he said, "Though I confess, when I went to the memorial I found myself wishing still that there had been no occasion to give rise to this honor, I've been thinking a lot about Oklahoma City lately.