Happy Saturday, music nerds! Today was a busy day; McDoc and I went to a graduation party for one of his fellow residents (that’ll be McDoc two years from now!), and I spent most of the rest of the day… drumroll… composing! Woot! Oh, and there was also some activity in the Miss Music Nerd Bureau of Graphic Design, but the details have not yet been cleared for release. 😉

So today’s post will be brief: music to mark a holiday that 36 states officially celebrate today: Juneteenth. It’s a commemoration of the time in 1865 when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveston, Texas, courtesy of federal troops who arrived to reclaim the state for the Union. (The proclamation had been issued by President Lincoln over two years prior to that; if only they’d had Twitter in those days…)

Here’s some great music to mark the day — enjoy! 🙂

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, sung by Kathleen Battle and the Boys Choir of Harlem

A Change Is Gonna Come, by Sam Cooke

Lift Every Voice and Sing, sung by Ray Charles