Bandcamp has announced their second annual Juneteenth fundraiser, after the success of the first version last year.
As per Billboard, for a second straight year the music company will donate 100% of its shares of all sales made on the online music marketplace to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund next Friday, June 18th, the day before Juneteenth.
Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S. making the NAACP Legal Defense Fund a worthy cause thanks to their ongoing efforts to promote racial justice through litigation advocacy and public education.
Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond explained the reasoning for the second Juneteenth fundraiser in a company blog post: “We held our first Juneteenth fundraiser last year in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the long-standing structural oppression, state-sanctioned violence, and daily racism faced by Black people and people of color, including many of our fellow employees and artists in the Bandcamp community,” he wrote.
“We’ve been inspired by and joined in the growing call for racial justice and equity, and have celebrated the many new reforms, practices, and policies that bring us closer to a world where Black people and people of color can thrive without fear of violence and oppression.”
Diamond continued: “At the same time, we are nowhere near where we need to be, and there is still much work to be done.”
It’s just one example of Bandcamp’s wider philanthropic moves. They have, of course, been waiving its share of sales on the first Friday of every month for over a year now. ‘Bandcamp Friday’ has become a vital way to pass along revenue to artists and labels and provide them with the monetary support that they often don’t receive from elsewhere.
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