Club Ebony — Indianola, Mississippi

Club Ebony at 404 Hannah Avenue in Indianola, Mississippi, was one of the premier Black entertainment venues in the Mississippi Delta from its opening in 1948 through its decades of operation — a club that hosted B.B. King, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Little Milton, Ike and Tina Turner, and virtually every major blues and R&B performer who toured the South during the second half of the twentieth century. B.B. King, who grew up near Indianola, played Club Ebony throughout his career and purchased the building in 2008 to ensure its preservation. He donated it to the B.B. King Museum, which operates it as a functioning venue today.

Indianola was B.B. King's hometown — he picked cotton in the surrounding Delta fields as a young man, learned guitar, and eventually found his way to Memphis and fame as the most celebrated electric blues guitarist of the twentieth century. His connection to Club Ebony was personal and lifelong: this was where he came home to play, where the community that shaped him could see what he had become, and where the link between Delta field music and sophisticated R&B nightclub performance was most vividly present. The club was also part of the 'Chitlin' Circuit' — the network of Black-owned and Black-friendly venues across the South that sustained African American performers during the segregation era.

Club Ebony is now managed by the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, which is located two blocks away on Second Street. The venue hosts concerts and events and is open for tours. It retains much of its mid-century interior character, including the original stage and bar. Indianola is approximately 30 miles southeast of Greenville in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.