The just-discovered original handwritten “Juneteenth” military order informing thousands of people held in bondage in Texas that they were free
Today is Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. It was on June 19, 1865, that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. To help celebrate the day, Bandcamp has announced that “from midnight to midnight PDT, and every Juneteenth hereafter, for any purchase you make on Bandcamp, we will be donating 100% of our share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.”
To be clear, this isn’t the same as what Bandcamp did on June 5th (and will do again on July 3rd), when it waived its share of sales of digital music and merch on the site. Today it will still collect its share, but it is promising to donate that share to a cause that aligns with the Juneteenth celebration. And that provides an added reason to consider purchases on Bandcamp today.
It also provides a reason for me to do what I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of weeks — to spread the word about some recently released compilations of underground music on Bandcamp. I know that I probably overlooked some, but these are the ones I made note of when I saw them. If you know of others, please leave a Comment. (Some of these are name-your-own-price downloads, but if yoiu kick in some money for those, Bandcamp’s pledge will still apply.) Continue reading »
