Juneteenth Edition
A reminder that good news sometimes travels far too slowly.
Blessings to All Y’all People of Conscience,
In a few days our country will acknowledge the federal holiday of Juneteenth. As many likely know, Juneteenth is a holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States. It specifically commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas finally learned that they were free—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln. For reasons that many can imagine, sometimes good news travels far too slowly. Juneteenth became a federal holiday only in 2021.
We feel blessed to have two meaningful engagements scheduled for Juneteenth this year. First, on the day itself, we will be with 7th-9th grade campers at one of the Union for Reform Judaism’s overnight summer camps. We are excited to explore themes of freedom, justice, peace, and hope with these young folks. The following evening we will be leading Shabbat with our friend, Rabbi Evan Schultz at Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, Connecticut. If you are in the area, reach out to us for more info as we’d love for you to join us. By the way, Evan is an extraordinarily gifted poet whose thoughtful writings definitely fall under the broad banner of “poetry for people of conscience.” The link above will take you to his personal website.
Call to Action
In addition to checking out Evan’s poetry and hopefully joining us in Connecticut, we have one additional call to action. It’s an experiment and we hope you don’t hate us for it! A recent interview with hip hop visionary, RZA, reminded us of the ways in which music has been devalued in the era of streaming. We feel this acutely as we are trying to fund a very high level series of recordings to help bring our message forward. If anyone, in response to this call to action, becomes a paid subscriber we will send you an absolutely awesome unreleased live track from a recent concert. You’ll then be in a very small (dare we say “elite”) group of people who can enjoy this recording. It's a recording of a song we wrote in honor of Juneteenth a few years ago. If you’d like the song, but becoming a paid subscriber isn’t possible, just let us know and we’ll send it to you anyway. Thank you for your consideration.
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Till We Meet Again,
Micah & Melvin