2025 Chautauqua Lecture 2 - B.B. King

Daniel de Visé will present a program on B.B. King on September 11. In 1961, King visited and performed at the Dolphin Club Lounge on Jekyll Island. The Lounge was located near St. Andrews Beach, which was for a time the only public beach on Georgia’s segregated coast accessible to African Americans. The venue was also part of the Chitlin Circuit, a series of venues throughout the South that served Black performers and Black audiences. Daniel de Visé’s book King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King was a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and was longlisted for the PEN America Award for Biography. His journalistic work has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Miami Herald. In 2001, he won a shared Pulitzer Prize with his team at the Herald. De Visé received his bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University and his master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.

The programs in this year’s Chautauqua series will take place on Thursday evenings at 6 p.m. at St. Simons Presbyterian Church. Each will be recorded and will be available for viewing after the program. The cost for the series is $50 for members and $95 for non-members, with individual program tickets available for $30 each. To register, please visit coastalgeorgiahistory.org.