They Came to America will be held June 18-21 in Ferguson Auditorium at AB-Tech in Asheville. This year’s Buncombe County Chautauqua features four of America’s most famous visitors. America changed their lives. And they, in turn, changed America and the world.

Experience it first hand at the 2012 Chautauqua with Winston Churchill, Golda Meir, Carl Jung and Denmark Vesey.

• Monday, June 18, Carl Jung - Swiss founder of Analytical Psychology and student of America’s dreams. Jung visited America six times in his life and was praised by Harvard University as “a philosopher who has examined the unconscious mind, a mental physician whose wisdom and understanding have brought relief to many in distress.”
• Tuesday, June 19, Golda Meir - The Russian born, American raised woman who became the fourth Prime Minister of Israel. At Meir’s death, Walter Cronkite said “She lived a life under pressure that we, in this country, would find impossible to understand. She was the strongest woman to head a government in our time and for a long time past.”
• Wednesday, June 20, Denmark Vesey - Born in the West Indies or Africa, Denmark Vesey was brought to South Carolina as a slave and later purchased his freedom with lottery winnings. As a free black man in a slave world, Vesey was hanged for being one of the masterminds of the 1822 Charleston Slave Rebellion.
• Thursday, June 21, Winston Churchill - Half American, half British and all bulldog; Winston Churchill guided England and the Allies through World War II. In a 2002 poll, the British people selected him as the Greatest Briton of all time, and he remains the only person ever given an honorary US citizenship by Congress.

Each evening, a scholar dressed in costume will bring the character to life through a first person monologue. The audience will then have a chance to question the character, delving more deeply into the issues that have been raised. The replies will be historically authentic, based on research using letters, diaries, journals, and published writings.

Finally, the scholar will step out of character to discuss the subject and answer questions from a critical, modern perspective.

Chautauqua 2012 is sponsored by the Friends of Buncombe County Public Libraries, Inc. Please plan to join us each evening in our new indoor venue, Ferguson Auditorium at AB-Tech. A musical program will begin each evening at 7:00 p.m. followed by the featured program at 7:30 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $4 per night or $12 for the four-night series.

For more information, call Pack Memorial Library at 250-4700 or email library@buncombecounty.org.