Colin Kaepernick

Since he first took a knee for the national anthem in 2016, Colin Kaepernick has prevented America from allowing football to be the country’s favorite escapism from racial injustice, even at the expense of his on-field career. His kneel came about following a conversation with former NFL player and U.S. military veteran Nate Boyer, who suggested kneeling to be a way to protest but still show respect to former and current military members. Kaepernick’s stance saw him out of the football despite ranking fifth-best in passing touchdown to interception ratio in the entire history of the NFL. Having once been just one player making a stand, following the death of George Floyd, nearly every major sports league—including the WNBA, the NBA, the National Women’s Soccer League, the Premier League, Major League Baseball and even the NFL—saw its athletes follow Kaepernick’s lead and protest or take a knee in support of racial justice. Those leagues’ fans are now watching, listening and engaging in a new era of racial reckoning. Pro sports didn’t just suddenly develop a conscience out of the ether. Kaepernick woke them up.

Kaepernick hasn’t slowed down his activism though. He created a nonprofit called Know Your Rights Camp that partnered to jointly commit $1 million to fund the release of incarcerated people who were vulnerable to the coronavirus and unable to afford bail during the height of the pandemic that pummeled Black and Latinx communities. He is working to change media, too, leading his production company, Ra Vision Media, into a deal with Disney, and formalized a partnership among Kaepernick Publishing, Audible and Medium to create storytelling platforms for Black and brown writers, directors and producers. He was even the face of Nike in 2018 when they released an ad featuring Kaepernick with the text, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” His activism has seen him named GQ Magazine Citizen of the Year, Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, the American Civil Liberties Union Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award, the Harvard University W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, and the Ripple of Hope Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

Mainstream America will reconsider Kaepernick at some point, in the same way it reconsidered Muhammad Ali years after he refused to go to Vietnam, and Jackie Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier. Progress comes in fits and starts, and this country tends to punish those who urge it to move faster. Kaepernick stood proud to voice his outrage, disrupting our comfortable racism and kneeling in order to stand up for Black Americans—and now he has created an army of engaged allies to keep pushing the racial justice agenda further.

“Do Black lives matter to you when they’re not throwing touchdowns, grabbing rebounds, serving aces? If that was uncomfortable to hear, good. I used to shy away from moments like this, because it’s convenient to be quiet. To be thought of as safe and polite. Colin Kaepernick never shied away. He knew that discomfort was essential to liberation and that fighting the oppression against Black people is bigger than sports.” — Sue Bird