‘Decades in Sports’: How Colin Kaepernick taking a knee in 2016 revived athlete activism in sports

A Single Gesture That Reshaped American Sports Culture

Activelifezero.com – Nearly a decade ago, a quiet act of dissent on a football field in California detonated a cultural firestorm that would redefine how athletes speak about race, power, and justice in the United States. The gesture was simple — a knee pressed to the turf during the national anthem — yet its reverberations stretched across stadiums, television screens, and political arenas for years afterward. At its center stood Colin Kaepernick, then a 28-year-old quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, who transformed a preseason ritual into one of the most recognizable symbols of 2010s sports activism.

The Road to the First Knee

The protest did not begin with a knee. It began with a chair. On August 14, 2016, ahead of the 49ers’ first preseason matchup against the Houston Texans, Kaepernick remained seated during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The following week, before a contest with the Denver Broncos, he repeated the seated gesture. Because he did not suit up for either game, the act passed almost entirely unnoticed by the broader public.

Everything shifted on August 26. Kaepernick returned to uniform for the 49ers’ preseason clash with the Green Bay Packers and, as he had done the prior two weeks, sat through the anthem. This time, millions of viewers across the country saw it. Afterward, speaking to longtime NFL reporter Steve Wyche, the quarterback laid bare his reasoning without softening a single edge:

“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 (are) getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

The clarity of that statement left little room for misinterpretation. When the following week arrived and Kaepernick took a knee — alongside teammate Eric Reid — before the Chargers game on September 1, 2016, the image locked itself into the national consciousness. It became, within days, one of the defining visual symbols of sports culture in that era.

A Backdrop of Unresolved Injustice

Understanding the protest requires understanding the moment that produced it. The 2010s in America carried racial tensions that ran far deeper than many outside observers realized. Nearly fifty years had elapsed since Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, yet the dream he articulated remained stubbornly unfulfilled. Police brutality against Black Americans persisted with a frequency that made headlines almost routine.

The Black Lives Matter movement had surged into national prominence in 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman — a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida — who had fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin the previous year. That verdict ignited sustained protests and crystallized a generation’s frustration with a justice system perceived as unevenly applied.

Tensions reached a peak in July 2016. Within a single day, two Black men — Alton Sterling and Philando Castile — were killed by law enforcement officers. Castile’s death prompted then-Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton to pose a question at a press conference that echoed through the state:

“Would this have happened if the driver and passenger were white? I don’t think it would have. So I’m forced to confront, and I think all of Minnesota is forced to confront, that this kind of racism exists.”

Kaepernick had been vocal on social media about both killings, describing Sterling’s death as a modern-day “lynching” and stating he had been “executed.” Hours after Castile fell, the quarterback declared it was “clear as day” that African Americans across the country were “under attack.” It was against this backdrop of grief and fury that he chose to translate his words into action on the football field.

The Backlash and the Unwavering Stance

The reaction was swift and often vicious. When the regular season commenced, Kaepernick continued his silent boycott of the anthem. Stadiums across the nation responded with boos. Death threats accumulated. Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in an interview with KIRO radio in Seattle, labeled the protest a “terrible thing” and suggested Kaepernick should “find a country that works better for him.”

Renée Graham, Associate Editor and Columnist at The Boston Globe, later reflected that the protest was neither loud nor disruptive: “it was a quiet protest and he wasn’t being disruptive, people focused on it, (and) it just took on this sort of life of its own.” Sports journalist Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times observed that “the whole country was wrapped up in this controversy,” a testament to how quickly a single player’s decision had become a national referendum on race, loyalty, and the role of athletes in public discourse.

Yet Kaepernick remained unmoved. No amount of public pressure, institutional criticism, or political condemnation altered his course. The protest, originally intended as a brief statement tied to specific killings, expanded into a broader conversation about systemic inequality, police accountability, and the platform athletes wield in American life. What began as one quarterback’s refusal to stand had, within weeks, become a movement — one that would outlast his career, reshape league policies, and embed the kneeling gesture permanently into the visual vocabulary of American sports.

Kaepernick himself was coming off a difficult 2015 season marred by injury, during which he lost his starting position. Football, at that precise moment, was no longer his central preoccupation. What mattered was the message, and the message, once delivered, belonged to everyone who heard it.