In new memoir, Colin Kaepernick reflects on his historic national anthem protest

NPR's Book of the Day

In this episode of NPR's Book of the Day, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick discusses his memoir 'The Perilous Fight,' reflecting on h

Key takeaways

• Kaepernick's protest was rooted in decades of lived experience with racism, not an impulsive act.

Main topics

• Colin Kaepernick's childhood experiences with racism
• The origins and meaning behind the national anthem protest

Notable quotes

"I had been taught about this as a young black boy in a white family."

Conclusion

Kaepernick affirms that his protest was not only justified but essenti

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:01) Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. All right, the NFL season is now officially underway. And if you didn't catch the first few moments of the season opening game between the Patriots and the Seahawks, then you missed Mike McCready, the lead guitarist for Pearl Jam, shred a rendition of the national anthem. You can watch it online. It's a very American affair. It starts with a moment of silence dedicated to the victims of 9-11 in honor of the 25th anniversary. And then McCready comes out. Behind him are his Marshall Stacks and a huge American flag. Fireworks go off at the big climax. And then a military flyover comes roaring over the stadium. This moment, the anthem before a national football game, it means a lot to Americans. And so when former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick used this moment 10 years ago to take a knee in a preseason game to protest racial injustice, well, let's just say... A lot of people had strong feelings about it. Kaepernick is now telling his side of the story with a new memoir, The Perilous Fight. And he talked to NPR's Michelle Martin about why he knelt, his surprise at the response after, and how the NFL uses patriotism to boost recruitment efforts for the military. That's all coming up. Speaker 6 (1:14) Hey, Lulu here. Whether we are romping through science, music, politics, technology, or feelings, we seek to leave you seeing the world anew. Radiolab adventures right on the edge of what we think we know, wherever you get podcasts. Speaker 5 (1:29) This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right. Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:54) It's been a decade since NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick made headlines for taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racism. That quiet act of protest cost the former San Francisco 49er his football career, but not his voice. In a new memoir titled The Perilous Fight, he writes of the years before and after the 2016 season. He details a lifetime of navigating being the adopted black son of a white family in a white community and about the physical and emotional cost of his sport. and about the civil rights work that has become his life's work. And he's with us now to tell us more about it. Colin Kaepernick, thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 1 (2:32) Oh, Michelle, thank you for having me on. I'm excited for the conversation today. Speaker 2 (2:36) Same here. You know, you opened the book with a really harrowing incident that happened when you were a child. Can you just briefly tell us what happened and why you wanted to open the book with this story? Speaker 1 (2:49) Yeah, we opened the Perilous fight with this moment from my childhood where, you know, like any kid in the middle of summer, you are outside in the neighborhood running around. And some of the neighbor kids were staying at their house as I was walking home. And being this eight-year-old kid walking down the street, and the kids were a little bit older than me. Speaker 1 (3:18) I realized as I was trying to get closer to see if they were still playing and if I could play with them, they grabbed me and tied me to a rose tree in the front yard. And it was a moment that, one, you don't expect. I wasn't prepared for. I had been taught about this as a young black boy in a white family. Speaker 1 (3:46) And the only thing that really saved me in that moment was a neighbor driving by and yelling at the kids. And in saying yelling at them, more so was, hey, what are y'all doing? And kept driving. And then the moment of running back home and realizing I can't tell my parents about this because... I don't know how they would respond to it. And I don't know if they would have my back in that. And I think it's important to open the book that way because so often I have been asked, like, why do you care about this? Like, why are you doing this? You've had a great life. You were adopted into a white family. You made it to the NFL and all of these things. Speaker 1 (4:42) And all of those things are true. And also, there's still the reality of being a Black boy and a Black man within the United States and the very real consequences of that. Speaker 2 (4:56) I think one of the reasons you start where you start is to demonstrate that by the time you got to that summer where you decided to take a knee, this wasn't just like an impulsive act. You had had a lifetime of thinking about these issues. Could you just take us inside that moment when you did decide that you would protest? This is after Freddie Gray had been killed in the custody of the Baltimore police. This is after there had been acts of civil unrest in a number of places as a consequence of that. Can you just take us inside your decision that I want to do something, I have to do something? Speaker 1 (5:34) Yeah. To your point, leading up to the protest, Speaker 1 (5:40) We had seen in the recent months and over the course of years a number of killings of black people very publicly on video. And it was also a little bit of a new era with how prominent social media had become. At this point, I had a lifetime of experiences. I had spent the years prior studying and educating myself around systems and Black history and how we got to this present moment. And then also more importantly, I would say in seeing all of these killings and having an understanding of the history and context. Speaker 1 (6:20) You then have to ask yourself, well, what am I going to do about it? And if I don't do anything, then what does that say about me? What does that say about who I am and my character if I know these things are wrong and I know people are being killed and I do nothing? And I think those were the moments that led up to the protest. Initially, you Speaker