Colin Kaepernick

On August 26, 2016, sports reporter Steve Wyche noticed Kaepernick sitting on the bench during the national anthem at a pre-season game against the Green Bay Packers; the rest of the team stood with their hands over their hearts in the traditional gesture for the anthem. Kaepernick had reportedly sat during the anthem in two other pre-season games prior to the August 26 game. 

When Wyche interviewed him in the locker room after the game, Kaepernick stated, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

The 49ers and the NFL both released statements on August 26, 2016, in response to Kaepernick’s protest gesture. 

The 49ers’ statement read, “The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.” 

Chip Kelly, the coach for the 49ers, also personally responded to questions about Kaepernick, saying it was "his right as a citizen" to choose to sit during the anthem, and that “it's not my right to tell him not to do something.”

The NFL also reportedly stated that “players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem.”

In the days after Kaepernick sat during the national anthem, Niners and NFL fans posted videos and photos of themselves burning the quarterback’s jersey.

One of those fans posted a video in which he stated, “[Inaudible] my favorite team’s players disrespected our country. And he did this by not standing up for the national anthem. I’m sorry, listen, you ignorant son of a bitch, people die every single day defending that flag that you refuse to stand for, and I won’t stand for that. … If you don’t love our country, get the fuck out of it.”

The man then proceeded to light a Kaepernick jersey on fire and said, “You should never play another down in the NFL again. Move to Canada.”

Journalist Erick Fernandez tweeted a video of another fan lighting a Kaepernick jersey on fire while audio of the national anthem played in the background. Fernandez captioned the video, “Salty 49ers fan burns #Kaepernick's jersey. Oh brother...”

The social media account for Esquire magazine tweeted in response to the jersey burning trend, “If you burned your Kaepernick jersey, you should burn your Ali poster too,” and linked to their article of the same title. 

On August 29, former President Donald Trump stated in an interview with radio personality Dori Monson that Kaepernick’s protest was “not a good thing.” He continued, “I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try—it won’t happen.”

On September 1, 2016, a week after Kaepernick’s original protest, he and fellow teammate, Eric Reid, knelt during the national anthem at the last preseason game against the Los Angeles Chargers. Kaepernick had been advised by Nate Boyer, former NFL Player and former Green Beret, that kneeling would be a more respectful gesture than sitting if Kaepernick was going to protest during the anthem. Kaepernick invited Boyer to the game as his guest.

Reid stated, “[The protest] hit close to home. I just wanted to show my support to [Kaepernick] and let him know that he is not the only person who feels the way that he feels. There are a lot of people out there that feel that way.”

Given the heavy military presence at the game, Kaepernick and Reid reportedly received booing from the crowd, in addition to praise from fans, as they were walking to the locker room. 

Kaepernick was also criticized the same day for leaked images of socks he had worn at an earlier practice; the socks were printed with cartoon pigs in police caps. 

Kaepernick issued a statement about the socks saying, “I wore these socks … because the rogue cops that are allowed to hold positions in police departments, not only put the community in danger, but also put the cops that have the right intention in danger by creating an environment of tension and mistrust. I have two uncles and friends who are police officers and work to protect and serve ALL people.”

On September 2, 2016, the Santa Clara Police union penned a letter to the NFL stating that they would boycott their security services during the September 12 game if action was not taken against Kaepernick for kneeling during the anthem. The Association is the lead police agency at the 49er’s home stadium in Santa Clara. 

The Santa Clara Chief of Police, Michael Sellers, released a statement the next day, writing, “As distasteful as [Kaepernick’s] actions are, these actions are protected by the Constitution,” and called on the officers to “protect the rights of every person, even if we disagree with their position.” He continued, “The safety of our community is our highest priority. I will urge the [Association] leadership to put the safety of our citizens first.”

On September 5, 2016, former President Barack Obama addressed Kaepernick’s protest in a conference at the Group of 20 summit. While Obama said that the meaning held in the flag and national anthem can be “a tough thing for [veterans and current military members] to get past,” he also stated that Kaepernick “cares about some real, legitimate issues that have to be talked about.” 

Obama continued, “I’d rather have young people who are engaged in the argument … than people who are just sitting on the sidelines not paying attention at all.”

Throughout the 2016 season, several athletes across multiple sports and leagues followed Kaepernick’s lead and kneeled during the national anthem. Players from the Cleveland Browns, Oakland Raiders, Seattle Seahawks, and Philadelphia Eagles were among those within the NFL who protested, while non–NFL athletes, such as soccer star Megan Rapinoe and players from the WNBA, also joined the movement. 

As more athletes began to kneel with Kaepernick, TIME Magazine took notice, featuring him on the cover of the September 2016 issue. The issue contained an article written by senior editor, Sean Gregory, titled, “All Across the Country, Athletes Are Fueling a Debate About How America Defines Patriotism.”

Gregory painted the landscape of response to Kaepernick’s protests by including quotes, statements, and reactions from those on both sides of the issue. 

Among those criticizing Kaepernick was Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King, who said Kaepernick was “undermining patriotism” and was “sympathetic to ISIS,” and Jim Brown, a civil rights activist and NFL Hall of Famer who attributed any protest involving “disrespecting the flag” as “not appropriate.”

Gregory cited statements from Kaepernick’s supporters as well, including John Carlos, the track-and-field star who protested at the 1968 Olympics by raising his fist in the Black Power salute with fellow medaler, Tommie Smith, on the medal platform. Carlos defended Kaepernick’s decision to protest at an NFL game, saying, “Where else is he going to make a statement where he’s going to reach the far ends of the earth?”

The article also covered several instances of both professional and junior athletes and teams joining Kaepernick in kneeling during the national anthem. One young football team in Beaumont, TX, anticipating their futures as Black men, were called the n-word for kneeling and faced words on their team Facebook page like, “The coaches need to be lynched” and “Kill them all.'' 

Of interest, Gregory noted, is that while NFL ratings and viewership went down for the 2016 and 2017 seasons, Kaepernick’s jersey “became the top-selling one in the NFL, outpacing those of stars like Tom Brady.” 

On March 3, 2017, Kaepernick decided not to continue his $114 million contract with the 49ers and became a free agent.

After opting out of his contract in March, Kaepernick became a free agent for the 2017 season. However, he was not signed or picked up from any of the other NFL teams. Kappa Alpha Psi, the fraternity organization that Kaepernick became a member of while at the University of Nevada, Reno, wrote a letter to the NFL on his behalf. 

The fraternity, noting that Kaepernick “ha[d] not broken any laws, … ha[d] not been accused of breaking any laws, … [and was] not under investigation by the League for breaking any laws,” accused the NFL of blackballing Kaepernick “... solely for exercising his Constitutional right to free speech.”

The letter, dated August 10, 2017, was written by Thomas L. Battles, Jr., Grand Polemarch of the fraternity, and was sent as a call to action for the NFL to “issue a public statement signaling an ‘all-clear’ around team efforts to work out or negotiate with Mr. Kaepernick.”

A couple weeks later, on August 23, the NAACP also wrote a letter to the NFL on Kaepernick’s behalf. Though the letter is no longer available to the public, excerpts exist in coverage from news outlets pursuing the story at the time.

In the letter, then-President and CEO of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson, emphasized that Kaepernick’s “act of dissent is well within the National Football League’s stated bylaws.” He wrote that Kaepernick’s time spent as a free agent is “unprecedented” and “it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is no sheer coincidence.” He further pressed, “No player should be victimized and discriminated against because of his exercise of free speech...”

Johnson and the NAACP also requested to meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss Kaepernick’s lingering free agency.

The same day that the NAACP wrote its letter to the NFL, the United We Stand Coalition held a rally outside of NFL headquarters in New York City. 

With an estimated 1,500 people in attendance at the rally, the Coalition had multiple items of action on their agenda: acquire a meeting with Goodell, demand that the NFL update their policy to protect players that want to engage in political protest, and reach out to Verizon via the #canyouhearmenow hashtag. Verizon had reportedly been one of the NFL’s biggest financial contributors, and so the Coalition gave them and the NFL until September 7 to meet their demands before they would call for a boycott of both companies.

On September 22, 2017, Trump gave a speech in Alabama in which he admonished Kaepernick and other athletes who had been kneeling during the anthem. 

Introducing the topic, Trump said, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He’s fired. He’s fired!’?”

He described Kaepernick’s protest as “...a total disrespect of our heritage. … a total disrespect of everything that we stand for,” and added that NFL ratings were down “massively.” When Trump mentioned players kneeling, the crowd began to boo, and he later encouraged audience members to “pick up and leave” if they were at a game and saw a player kneeling during the anthem. 

On October 8, 2017, former Vice President Mike Pence attended a Colts v. 49ers game with his wife, Karen Pence. The two left the game after the national anthem due to players’ refusal to stand. Pence tweeted, “I left today’s Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our flag, or our National Anthem.” The tweet was followed by several others and ended with a photo of Pence’s full statement. 

Though Trump’s account has since been suspended and his tweets are no longer available, it was reported that he tweeted in response to Pence, saying, “I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium [sic] if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.”

In October of 2017, Kaepernick, with the help of high profile attorney Mark Geragos, filed a demand for arbitration on the NFL for allegedly colluding to “deprive [him] of employment rights” in response to his protest the previous year. 

The grievance cited the NFL’s treatment of Kaepernick as a violation of a provision in the league’s collective bargaining agreement. The complaint also stated that the NFL and Team Owners “retaliated against Mr. Kaepernick in response to coercion and calculated coordination from the Executive Branch of the United States government.”

Geragos further wrote that displays of support by owners and league leadership for players protesting “proved to be a public relations stunt” as, later on, “NFL owners threatened players with fines and suspension if they refused to stand for the national anthem.” The document also included the rule change proposal made by NFL Commissioner Goodell a few days prior that would require all players to stand during the anthem. 

“It is no longer a statistical anomaly but instead a statistical impossibility,” Geragos claimed, “that Mr. Kaepernick has not been employed or permitted to try out for any NFL team since the initiation of his free agency period.” 

Geragos said in a statement regarding the complaint, “If the NFL … is to remain a meritocracy, then principled and peaceful protest — which the owners themselves made great theater imitating weeks ago — should not be punished and athletes should not be denied employment based on partisan political provocation by the Executive Branch of our government. Such a precedent threatens all patriotic Americans and harkens back to our darkest days as a nation. Protecting all athletes from such collusive conduct is what compelled Mr. Kaepernick to file his grievance.”

Eric Reid, the NFL safety who knelt with Kaepernick and continued to do so throughout the 2017 season, also filed a grievance for collusion the following year. 

Reid, said in a statement, "I'll have to follow up with [Kaepernick] [about the grievance]. It sure does seem like he's being blackballed. I think all the stats prove that he's an NFL-worthy quarterback. So that's his choice, and I support his decision.”

A few months prior to the grievance, sports editor Kyle Wagner, writing for FiveThirtyEight, graphed the “Length of player’s free agency” against their “Total Quarterback Rating” based on ESPN stats. The size of the dots corresponded to how many plays they had in the previous season. Regarding Kaepernick’s position on the graph, Wagner wrote, “No above-average quarterback has been unemployed nearly as long as Kaepernick this offseason.”

On August 30, 2018, Stephen Burbank, System Arbitrator for the NFL, denied the NFL’s request that he dismiss Kaepernick’s complaint. Mark Geragos tweeted the brief statement from Burbank the same day. 

That September, Kaepernick participated in a multimedia ad campaign for Nike. On September 3, Nike released a photographic still with a close-up of Kaepernick’s face accompanied by the words, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Kaepernick also tweeted the photo himself, quoting the phrase from the ad in his caption followed by Nike’s famous tagline #JustDoIt. Nike shares reportedly dropped 3.2 percent and #NikeBoycott started trending on Twitter amidst the ad’s release. 

On September 9, Nike released a video ad featuring Kaepernick and other athletes from around the world, including tennis star Serena Williams and Canadian soccer player Alphonso Davies. The ad, narrated by Kaepernick, highlighted athletes who had overcome extreme odds, and ended with Kaeprnick saying, “So don’t ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they’re crazy enough.” 

Kaepernick had tweeted the video a few days earlier, on September 5, with the same adage from the original still ad, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

Along with the #NikeBoycott hashtag trending, social media users also posted photos and videos of themselves burning and throwing away Nike product. One user captioned a video of burning his Nike shoes with, “First the @NFL forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country. … Then @Nike forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country. Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive?” He said of Nike in the video, “You’re gonna go ahead and say, ‘Hey! Buy our shoes, we stand with people who kneel during the national anthem.’ Well. Sorry Nike. I’ve been buying you for the past 20 plus years. Not anymore. Not only am I burning my favorite pair of Nikes, you’re burning your sales.”

Country music artist John Rich tweeted, “Our Soundman just cut the Nike swoosh off his socks. Former Marine. Get ready @Nike multiply that by millions.”

A spokesperson for the NFL, Jocelyn Moore, said in response to the ad, "The National Football League believes in dialogue, understanding and unity. We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities. The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action."

Gino Fisanotti, Vice President of Nike, said in a statement, “We believe Colin is one of the most inspirational athletes of this generation, who has leveraged the power of sport to help move the world forward.” 

The “Dream Crazy” video ad won a “Creative Arts” Emmy for best commercial a year later in 2019, and, despite outrage from former Nike fans, Nike sales actually increased 31 percent following their collaboration with Kaepernick.

During the February 2019 Super Bowl LIII, many celebrities and athletes either publicly boycotted the Super Bowl or wore a black jersey with the number seven and the hashtag #IMWITHKAP printed above. 

Director Ava DuVernay tweeted, “I will not be a spectator, viewer or supporter of the #SuperBowl today in protest of the @NFL’s racist treatment of @Kaepernick7… To watch the game is to compromise my beliefs. It’s not worth it. #ImWithKap.” The caption accompanied a video montage with audio from spoken word poet Hannah L. Drake dedicated to Kaepernick.

Other stars who wore the jersey in support of Kaepernick were comedian Nick Cannon, basketball stars Lebron James and Kevin Durant, and radio personality Charlemagne Tha God. Kaepernick also tweeted a photo of athlete and Olympian John Carlos wearing the jersey, writing, “It means the world to me to have the support of John Carlos, an Icon who paved the way for myself and many others to continue to fight systemic oppression. Thank you for your sacrifice for us!”

On February 15, 2019, Kaepernick and the NFL settled their collusion dispute without going to court. The parties came to a confidential agreement, but Geragos released a brief joint statement the same day which read, “For the past several months, counsel for Mr. Kaepernick and Mr. Reid have engaged in an ongoing dialogue with representatives of the NFL. As a result of those discussions, the parties have decided to resolve the pending grievances.” 

Sports reporters Kevin Draper and Ken Belson of the New York Times wrote, “Frank Hawkins, a former senior vice president of the N.F.L., said he thought the league was probably more worried about embarrassing statements from owners getting out through a hearing than about losing the case.

“‘People say stupid things, things get taken out of context,’ he said. ‘So I think there was a reasonable potential for embarrassment and it is something that if they could settle it at a reasonable cost, they would probably just think it was worth paying nuisance value.’”

It was later reported that Kaepernick and Reid allegedly received less than $10 million in the settlement—significantly less than the tens of millions that might have been owed if Kaepernick’s grievance had prevailed. 

On November 16, 2019, after negotiating terms with the NFL, Kaepernick at last performed at a tryout in front of eight NFL scouts. Originally, it was planned that he would work out in front of all 32 team scouts, but due to a media and legal dispute, the location was changed and only eight moved to the new location. 

Jeff Nalley, Kaepernick’s agent, said, “Something didn’t smell right,” and Kaepernick’s lawyers rejected an “unusual liability waiver” in regards to the legal dispute before the workout. Protesters and supporters alike were present at the event, as well as members of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Kaepernick commented to the media afterwards, “I’ve been prepared for three years, I’ve been denied for three years and you all know why. I’ve been ready. I’m staying ready.”

Although one of the scouts called Kaepernick’s performance “impressive,” Nalley said, “I hope [one of the teams will call], but to be honest, I’m a little pessimistic because I’ve talked to all 32 teams” and none had offered a try-out previously.

On June 4, 2020, amidst ongoing protests and demonstrations in response to the murder of George Floyd, NFL players made a video calling on the league and Commissioner Goodell to condemn racism. The players, which included Patrick Mahomes and Michael Thomas, implored the league, “How many times do we need to ask you to listen to your players? What will it take? One of us being murdered by police brutality?” 

They went on, “We will not be silenced. We assert our right to peacefully protest,” followed by a call for the NFL to state that, “We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black people. … admit wrong in silencing our players from peacefully protesting. … believe Black Lives Matter.”

The next day, the NFL tweeted the video writing, “Players, we hear you,” along with the hashtag, #StrongerTogether. Later in the day, Commissioner Goodell tweeted a video in which he accepted and repeated, in full, the call issued by players. He further stated, “I personally protest with you and want to be a part of the much-needed change in this country. Without Black players there would be no National Football League, and the protests around the country are emblematic of silence, inequality, and oppression of Black players, coaches, fans, and staff. We are listening. I am listening …”