A celebration of the Year of Czech Music at Carnegie Hall in New York City in December 2024 was, per New York Times’ review, “something like a festival”. AFoCR co-organized invitation only event attended by the Czech President Pavel and Maestro Bychkov. AFOCR is proud to be one of the Czech Phil’s key US supporters.

Photo credit: CF Petr Chodura

On November 20, 2024, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the VÁCLAV HAVEL BUST dedication in the U.S. Capitol.

The event was co-sponsored by the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington DC and the American Friends of the Czech Republic. Billy F Gibbons, Marketa Irglova, and Suzanne Vega provided video tributes and special thanks to Blue Oyster Cult’s Buck Dharma #morecowbell 🇺🇸🤘🏻🇨🇿

The event was co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute and our featured speakers are Czech Senator Miroslav Barta and Czech Army Colonel Otakar Foltyn, who discussed the topic of “The Future: On Energy, Change, Innovation and Democracy”. Discussion was narrated by one of our directors, Elliot Berke.

More than half of our directors visited Prague in mid-September to listen, discuss and extend our relationships.

Photo: AFOCR’s directors visit the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan Lipavsky.

AFoCR Directors had an opportunity to meet with President Peter Pavel during a reception organized by the Czech Ambasador Miloslav Stasek. The "Founding Fathers of AFoCR", Milt Cerny, Phil Kasik and Bob Doubek, along with the Chairman Tom Dine.

AFoCR is co-organizing Economic Summit, one of the key events initiating the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Czech and Slovak Library and Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Professor Jan Svejnar, AFoCR’s Advisor, is the key note speaker at the conference.

Czech Prime Minister Peter Fiala visited Washington D.C. during April 14 to April 16, 2024. His schedule included meeting with president Biden and multiple other meetings. He met with the AFoCR leadership during the ceremony commemorating the first Czechoslovak president Masaryk.

Picture: AFoCR directors with Mr. Fiala

Picture credit: CTK

One Life recounts the inspiring true story of Nicholas Winton, a young London stockbroker on vacation in Prague in late 1938. Witnessing the plight of Jewish refugees facing persecution by the Nazis, Winton skips a planned ski holiday to join the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia to help save endangered Jewish children.

Tom Dine (AFoCR’s Chairman) and Milt Cerny (AFoCR’s Co-founder) recently reviewed the movie and they remind us of our actions taken to make sure the events are remembered.

Picture credit: BBC Film

In April 1990, Peter Bisek started publishing Czechoslovak Weekly, later renamed Americké Listy, in New York. By the mid-1990s, the publication already had a solid reputation, not just among its readers. It was extremely useful in the process of lobbying for the NATO expansion to include the countries of Central Europe. His recent article highlights the role of his publication, AFoCR and others in this process.