The Churchill Centre to Donate Bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the U.S. Capitol

Historic Work to Join Prestigious National Collection

The Churchill Centre has announced that it has been invited to donate a bust of Winston Churchill to the U.S. Capitol for permanent display in the Congressional art collection, alongside images of great figures from American history. Very few non-Americans are represented in the Capitol building and this will be the most significant recognition accorded to Churchill by the United States government in many years. 

The donation is made at the invitation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives pursuant to House Resolution 497 approved on the 70th anniversary of Churchill’s historic address to a joint session of Congress shortly after America’s entry into World War Two. The Resolution noted Churchill’s status as an Honorary Citizen of the United States and recognized that his “persistence, determination and resolve remain an inspiration to freedom-fighters all over the world.”

Center on Winston Churchill to be Created in D.C.

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Tracie Mauriello / Post-Gazette Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON --Christopher Sterling has made numerous trips to the United Kingdom to visit Sir Winston Churchill's former home in Kent, the Cabinet War Rooms in London and Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, where British code breakers deciphered Nazi secrets during World War II.

Soon, Mr. Sterling, a George Washington University dean and former president of the Washington Society for Churchill, won't have to travel 3,600 miles to study the mercurial prime minister whose wartime leadership helped save Western civilization from the Nazis.

That's because the Chicago-based Churchill Centre and George Washington University are teaming up to create the only major Churchill facility in the United States outside the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Mo., site of the prime minister's famous 1946 Iron Curtain speech.

The National Churchill Library and Center will be created on the GWU campus, just blocks from the White House, in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library. It is expected to be both a museum for the general public and a major academic research center on par with similar facilities in the United Kingdom. The center will make source material available to academic researchers -- and celebrate the achievements and personal history of Churchill, son of a British statesman and an American socialite.

"Winston Churchill is a part of the story of Britain but also the story of the world and of America becoming a great world power. He's as much a part of American history as British," said Churchill Centre director Lee Pollock.