Andrew Hertzberg
Last August, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick famously sat during the national anthem before a pre-season game. A year later, Kaepernick’s struggle continues.
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Kaerpernick explained his motivation in an interview last year: “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.”
While the action has been polarizing and controversial, he isn’t alone in his beliefs. The 29-year-old has garnered growing support particularly in Chicago, as WGN reports.
Kids with the Black Star Project (a non-profit organization that offers educational resources to youth) took a knee in a move of solidarity and wrote letters to the NFL.
Additionally, two bars are refusing to show NFL games. The Bureau Bar and the Velvet Lounge are both located in the South Loop, not too far from Soldier Field. The owner of Bureau Bar feels that Kaepernick is being blackballed and won’t show any games until he signs with a new team.
Kaepernick left the 49ers earlier this year and remains an unsigned free agent. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been busy. He is in the process of donating one million dollars to various charities around the country, including a $25,000 donation to the the Black Youth Project 100 chapter of Chicago last fall.
RELATED: Philadelphia Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins vows to continue his national anthem protest this season
The future remains uncertain for Kaepernick but at the very least there seems to be no end in sight to the quarterback’s activism and altruism.
