Bandcamp has announced it will be donating 100% of its profits for 24 hours to the NAACP Legal Defense on June 19. The music platform’s decision is in direct response to the ongoing protests over the killing of George Floyd and other instances of racial injustice, while also marking Juneteenth, the anniversary of enslaved African Americans being informed of their liberation in the former Confederate States of America in 1865.
“The recent killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the ongoing state-sanctioned violence against black people in the US and around the world are horrific tragedies,” Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond wrote in a post on the platform’s website. “We stand with those rightfully demanding justice, equality, and change, and people of color everywhere who live with racism every single day, including many of our fellow employees and artists and fans in the Bandcamp community.”
The platform also commited to waiving its revenue shares for “every Juneteenth hereafter”, as well as “allocating an additional $30,000 per year to partner with organizations that fight for racial justice and create opportunities for people of color.”
Diamond added: “The current moment is part of a long-standing, widespread, and entrenched system of structural oppression of people of color, and real progress requires a sustained and sincere commitment to political, social, and economic racial justice and change. We’ll continue to promote diversity and opportunity through our mission to support artists, the products we build to empower them, who we promote through the Bandcamp Daily, our relationships with local artists and organizations through our Oakland space, how we operate as a team, and who and how we hire.”
Read the full statement here.
This Friday, June 5th, Bandcamp will waive its revenue shares for the fourth time to support musicians impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
This coming Juneteenth (June 19, from midnight to midnight PDT) and every Juneteenth hereafter, we will donate 100% of our share of sales to the @NAACP_LDF https://t.co/FVgnE0FuDC
— bandcamp (@Bandcamp) June 1, 2020
