Colin Kaepernick reflects on NFL protest legacy ten years later

Ten years after his protest against racial injustice made headlines across the sports world and beyond, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick says his personal mission continues, but his affection for the NFL is long gone.

In an interview with NBC News, the 38-year-old acknowledged that he no longer tunes in to professional football games, saying, "I'm not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well. I watch college football."

During the 2016 preseason, Kaepernick and then-49ers teammate Eric Reid took a knee during the national anthem before a game. Although he had sat on the bench during the anthem earlier in that preseason, the image of him and Reid kneeling while teammates stood quickly circulated worldwide.

At the time, he told the NFL Network, "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."

Kaepernick, who guided San Francisco to the Super Bowl to finish the 2012 season, was out of the league following the 2016 season and never played again. He and Reid later sued the NFL, alleging collusion to keep them out of professional football, reaching a settlement in 2019.

Since then, Kaepernick has committed his time to initiatives such as Know Your Rights camps, which aim "to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders," while also helping pay for independent autopsies in police-involved deaths.

Asked by NBC if he reflects on his football legacy, Kaepernick said, "I don't think about legacy a whole lot. What I think about is what are the areas that I can do work that I think are going to have an impact and help us move towards that future together. At the end of the day, people will decide what that legacy is, and hopefully that's a positive one."

Kaepernick has authored a memoir, titled "The Perilous Fight," which will become available on Sept. 15.