Background

Colin Rand Kaepernick was born on November 3, 1987, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His birth mother was a 19-year-old white woman named Heidi Russo, who placed the child up for adoption after his black biological father fled upon learning that Russo was pregnant. When Colin was just a few weeks old, he was adopted by a white couple, Rick and Teresa Kaepernick. Colin later became a star quarterback for the University of Nevada-Reno football team, and in 2011 he was drafted by the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers. In 2014 he signed a seven-year, $126 million contract with the 49ers.

Embracing and Emphasizing His Black Identity as a Teenager

In a March 2023 interview with NPR, Kaepernick reflected upon how he had embraced his blackness during his teenage years. Below are two excerpts from that interview:

• “It was navigating the difficulties of family, community, school, and major life decisions. Like, while I am biracial, I identify as a young Black man. So I was trying to navigate that while having a white family and being in a predominantly white community, and trying to find ways to make sure that my identity and blackness wasn’t stripped from me along that journey.”
• “This was the era of Allen Iverson, a cultural phenom. He was someone that I looked up to, and I saw him be so unapologetically Black and unapologetically himself. It was something I aspired to, and I looked at that as an opportunity for me to be able to really take hold of my blackness and do it in a way that I was proud of and I was excited about. And the difficulty with that is being in white culture with Eurocentric beauty standards, navigating what their response to that was at 15 years old and not knowing how to fight back against that, really outside of saying, no, this is just what I want to do. And that became a very difficult conversation and situation, navigating that both with my family, with my community, with coaches.”

Kaepernick’s Radicalization

Kaepernick became politically radicalized after he began dating MTV host Nessa Diab in July 2015. Diab’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were replete with posts supporting black activism generally and the Black Lives Matter movement in particular. By early autumn 2015, Kaepernick’s social media posts and other public statements began to reference similar themes, sometimes featuring quotes from the late Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton, and the Marxist cop-killer Assata Shakur.

• On October 15, 2015, Kaepernick wrote: “History!” in an Instagram post marking the 50-year anniversary of the founding of the Black Panthers; the post featured an iconic photograph showing Huey Newton holding a loaded shotgun.
• Here is a photo of Kaepernick at a press conference, wearing a t-shirt promoting the Black Panthers.
• Here is a photo of Kaepernick in a t-shirt where Panther founder Huey Newton‘s visage is superimposed upon the red star of Communism.
• Kaepernick has raised money for Assata’s Daughters, an organization named after Ms. Shakur.

In 2016, Kaepernick and his partner, the radio and television personality Nessa Diab, co-founded the “Know Your Rights Camp,” an Oakland-area organization seeking “to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities” by teaching nonwhite minority youths about self-empowerment, their legal rights, and the evils of American history.

At an August 30, 2016 press conference, Kaepernick wore a black hat emblazoned with a large, white “X,” and a t-shirt bearing photographs of Malcolm X and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. A slogan on the shirt read, “Like Minds Think Alike.” When a reporter subsequently asked Kaepernick to articulate why he held a positive view of Castro, the quarterback said: “… I agree in the [Castro’s] investment in education. I also agree in the investment of free universal healthcare. As well as the involvement in him helping end apartheid in South Africa.”

Kneeling in Protest during National Anthem

Kaepernick made national headlines in August 2016, when, as a gesture of protest against allegedly widespread police brutality and racial injustice in the United States, he defiantly remained seated during the playing of the national anthem prior to the start of a pre-season football game. He subsequently justified his action by stating:

• “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
• “When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.”
• “There’s a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality. There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people…. That’s not right by anyone’s standards.”
• “At what point do we take a stand and, as a people, say this isn’t right? You [the police] have a badge and you’re supposed to be protecting us, not murdering us.”

Altogether, Kaepernick sat during the national anthem preceding three consecutive games. Prior to the fourth game, he instead — for public-relations purposes — knelt during the anthem, and this became his preferred method of protest thenceforth.

As the 2016-17 NFL season wore on, many additional players throughout the league also began to kneel during the pre-game anthem – like Kaepernick, as a gesture of protest against institutional racism and police misconduct.

Depicting Police Officers As Pigs

In early September 2016, a number of news outlets began to show some newly discovered photographs of Kaepernick, during an August 10th preseason training session, wearing socks that depicted police officers as pigs.

Kaepernick Opts out of Contract with 49ers

On March 3, 2017, Kaepernick officially opted out of his seven-year contract with the 49ers, thereby becoming a free agent. But when no teams subsequently extended any contract offers to him, Kaepernick in November 2017 filed a grievance against the NFL, alleging that the team owners were colluding to keep him out of the league.

Supporting the American Friends Service Committee

In 2017 Kaepernick donated $25,000 to the American Friends Service Committee, to help fund a program aimed at stopping the privatization of prisons.

Honored by Amnesty International

In April 2018, Amnesty International honored Kaepernick with its Ambassador of Conscience Award, which “celebrates individuals and groups who speak out for justice.”

Lucrative Deal with Nike

In September 2018, Kaepernick signed a lucrative multi-year deal with the Nike sports apparel company, making him the face of the 30th anniversary of its famous “Just Do It” campaign. As part of the deal, Nike pledged to produce as much new Kaepernick apparel as the market would bear. It also promised to donate money to Kaepernick’s “Know Your Rights” campaign, an initiative whose mission is “to fight oppression of all kinds … through education and social activism.”

The “Betsy Ross” Sneaker Controversy

In the summer of 2019, Nike was planning to release a red, white, and blue “Betsy Ross” or “Fourth of July” edition of its “Air Max 1 Quick Strike” shoe, which featured the image of an original American flag with 13 stars arranged in a circle, representing the 13 original American colonies. In response, Kaepernick complained to Nike that the original flag carried a “connection to an era of slavery.” Nike, in turn, chose not to release the shoe because, as the company said in a statement, “it featured an old version of the American flag.”

Private, on-Field Workout Attended by Representatives from Every NFL Team

In November 2019, the NFL organized a private, on-field workout for Kaepernick and invited representatives from every team in the league to attend. Moreover, the Daily Wire reported: “The workout was set up to provide teams anonymity, so if they watched Kaepernick and didn’t want him, they wouldn’t catch flack. This was done to encourage more teams to attend the event, thus helping the quarterback secure a position.” But Kaepernick abruptly cancelled the 3 p.m. workout approximately 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, because: (a) he was not allowed to bring his own camera crew to the event, and (b) the league had demanded that as a precondition to the workout, Kaepernick sign a standard liability waiver in case he were to be injured. Kaepernick then conducted a workout at 4 p.m. at a high-school field 51 miles away, where he wore a “Kunta Kinte” t-shirt, likening himself to the defiant slave who bore that name in the movie Roots.

Condemning America’s Mistreatment of “Indigenous People”

In a Thanksgiving Day tweet on November 28, 2019, Kaepernick wrote: “Spent the morning at the Indigenous People’s Sunrise Ceremony on the 50 year anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz.^[1] The US government has stolen over 1.5 billion acres of land from Indigenous people. Thank you to my Indigenous family, I’m with you today and always.”

Accusing America of Imperialism & Terrorism Against Nonwhite Peoples

Shortly after President Trump had ordered the January 3, 2020 drone strike in Baghdad that killed General Qassem Soleimani, the terrorist leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Kaepernick tweeted: “There is nothing new about American terrorist attacks against Black and Brown people for the expansion of American imperialism.” In a separate tweet, Kaepernick wrote: “America has always sanctioned and besieged Black and Brown bodies both at home and abroad. America militarism is the weapon wielded by American imperialism, to enforce its policing and plundering of the nonwhite world.”

Supported the Violent Riots That Erupted after the Death of George Floyd in 2020

On May 28, 2020, Kaepernick supported the violent riots that broke out in many American cities following a white police officer’s abuse of, and killing of, a 46-year-old black Minneapolis man named George Floyd. Tweeted Kaepernick: “When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction. The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your [white police] violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”

Kaepernick Receives Massive Donation from Jack Dorsey

In early June 2020, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced his plan to donate $3 million to Kaepernick’s activist organization Know Your Rights Camp.

Netflix Series Colin in Black & White

On June 29, 2020, Netflix announced its plan to produce — in partnership with Ava DuVernay — Colin in Black & White, a six-episode series focusing on Kaepernick’s high-school years. “Too often we see race and Black stories portrayed through a white lens,” Kaepernick said in a news release. “We seek to give new perspective to the differing realities that Black people face. We explore the racial conflicts I faced as an adopted Black man in a white community, during my high school years. It’s an honor to bring these stories to life in collaboration with Ava for the world to see.”

Condemning American Racism

In a July 4, 2020 tweet, Kaepernick posted a video showing images of the Ku Klux Klan, police brutality, slavery, and lynchings. He denounced the nation’s 244th birthday as a “celebration of white supremacy.” Above the video, he wrote this caption: “Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of ‘independence’, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all.”

Contract with Walt Disney Company and ESPN

On July 6, 2020, Kaepernick signed a contract with The Walt Disney Company and ESPN to produce “scripted and unscripted stories that deal with race, social injustice and the quest for equity,” including a documentary series about his own life.

The “Abolition for the People” Project on “Police Terrorism”

On October 6, 2020, Kaepernick announced that he was partnering with LEVEL (a part of the online publishing platform Medium) to launch “Abolition for the People,” a movement aimed at ending the “scourge of police terrorism.” Vibe.com reported on Kaepernick’s project as follows:

“Over the next four weeks, the [‘Abolition for the People’] project will publish 30 stories from organizers, political prisoners, scholars, and advocates — all of which point to the crucial conclusion that policing and prisons do not serve as catch-all solutions for the issues and people the state deems social problems. Not only do police and prisons fail to make us safer, but reform has only strengthened their most toxic ingrained practices. The only answer is abolition, a full dismantling of the carceral state and the institutions that support it. Instead, we need to invest in a future that puts justice and the needs of the community first. A future that, as Colin Kaepernick himself says in his introductory essay, makes us safer, healthier, and truly free. The need for abolition is rooted in the anti-Blackness intrinsic to policing and incarceration — phenomena which will be amply proven over the coming days — but the realization of it offers justice for all people in all communities and global liberation from systemic oppression.”

In an October 7, 2020 screed published on his Medium page, Kaepernick called for abolishing America’s police departments, which he said had “roots in white supremacy and anti-blackness.” Claiming that the “central intent” of law enforcement is to “surveil, terrorize, capture, and kill marginalized populations, specifically Black folks,” Kaepernick added: “Abolition is the only way to secure a future beyond anti-Black institutions of social control, violence, and premature death. Abolition is the only way to secure a future beyond anti-Black institutions of social control, violence, and premature death.”

Supporting the Marxist Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal

During a November 2020 video conference, Kaepernick demanded that Pennsylvania political authorities release Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981 and was sentenced to life in prison. Claiming that Mumia had been wrongly convicted as a result of evidence-tampering by police, Kaepernick said: “Mumia has maintained his innocence. His story has not changed. Mumia was shot, brutalized, arrested and chained to a hospital bed. We’re in the midst of a movement that says Black Lives Matter, and if that’s truly the case, then it means that Mumia’s life and legacy must matter. And the causes that he sacrificed his life and freedom for must matter as well.”

Global Game Changer Award

In October 2021, the Executive Leadership Council presented Kaepernick with its Global Game Changer Award at the organization’s Annual Recognition Gala and 35th Anniversary Celebration. In his acceptance speech, Kaepernick said: “As you commemorate your 35 years of community impact and educational outreach, know, too, that I celebrate your accomplishments and recognize the importance of the work you have done in supporting global Black leaders who support our communities without apology or exception.”

Comparing the NFL Scouting Combine to a Slave Auction

In an October 2021 episode of the Netflix documentary series about Kaepernick’s life, Colin In Black & White, Kaepernick condemned the NFL Scouting Combine — an annual, week-long showcase where college football players, in advance of the NFL draft, perform physical and mental tests in front of National Football League coaches, general managers, and scouts. In his discussion of this tradition, Kaepernick complained that the young prospects at the Combine were routinely “poked, prodded, and examined” for defects, likening the process to a mid-1800s slave auction where white landowners examined slaves before purchasing them. Kaepernick stated that this was how the NFL scouts sought to establish a “power dynamic.” That particular scene of the documentary closed by portraying an NFL coach shaking hands with a slave auctioneer against the backdrop of bonded slaves — implying that modern-day professional athletes are exploited in much the same way as were the black slaves of yesteryear.

Kaepernick Condemns the Kyle Rittenhouse Jury Verdict

On August 25, 2020 — during a violent Black Lives Matter/Antifa riot which followed an incident where a white Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer had shot and permanently disabled a knife-wielding black criminal named Jacob Blake — Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white youth from Antioch, Illinois, drove to Kenosha, where his father resided, with the intent of: (a) helping to prevent further vandalism in that city, and (b) providing medical aid to people injured in the melee. At the scene of the unrest, Rittenhouse was armed with a semi-automatic rifle that had been purchased (with his money) and held for him by his friend Dominick Black, a resident of Kenosha.

When white rioter and Kenosha resident Joseph Rosenbaum — who had spent 15 years in prison for multiple child molestation convictions that included anal rape — chased Rittenhouse, threatened to kill him, and tried to take away his rifle, Rittenhouse fatally shot Rosenbaum. While subsequently being chased by a crowd of approximately a dozen rioters, Rittenhouse ran down a street toward police vehicles, in hopes that the officers might protect him from his pursuers. But the fleeing Rittenhouse tripped and fell to the ground, at which point he was struck on the head by a 39-year-old white man who jump-kicked him. Then, while Rittenhouse was still on the ground, white Silver Lake resident Anthony Huber — a domestic abuse repeater and an ex-convict who in 2013 had pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts of strangulation, suffocation, and false imprisonment — struck him on the head and neck with a skateboard and attempted to pull away his rifle, at which point Rittenhouse killed Huber with a single gunshot to the chest. And when white West Allis resident Gaige Grosskreutz — who had a long arrest history that included multiple misdemeanors and felonies — then approached the fallen Rittenhouse and pointed a handgun directly at him, Rittenhouse shot him once in the right arm, wounding but not killing the man.

Rittenhouse was subsequently tried on six criminal charges which included homicide, reckless endangerment, and possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under the age of 18. A large number of leftists portrayed him as a racist, Trump-supporting white vigilante who had recklessly fired his gun at “social justice” and “racial justice” demonstrators in Kenosha.

After a jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts on November 19, 2021, Kaepernick tweeted: “We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist. This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed.”

Honorary Degree

On May 18, 2021, Morgan State University announced that it would award honorary degrees to Kaepernick, filmmaker David E. Talbert, and education-equity advocate David Burton during the school’s 145th Spring Commencement ceremony on May 21. MSU president David Wilson said in a statement on May 18:

“Leadership, Integrity, Innovation, Diversity, Excellence and Respect are more than just words that appear on the flags that adorn our campus, or words that we utter casually when reciting our core values, they represent the embodiment of who we are and what a Morgan graduate stands for. With this notion in mind, we intentionally sought a collection of individuals who truly embody these principles, and thankfully we have assembled a trio of diverse voices who have bravely stood—and kneeled—for the betterment and advancement of the voiceless, the marginalized and the disenfranchised. We are absolutely thrilled to bestow honorary degrees to David E. Talbert, David Burton and Colin Kaepernick for their individual, and collective, contributions to the progression of the Black narrative and pursuit of excellence.”

Kaepernick’s Enormous Wealth

As of November 2020, Kaepernick’s net worth was approximately $20 million.

Further Reading: “Colin Kaepernick” (Biography.com).

Footnotes:

1. History.com explains what the occupation of Alcatraz was about:
   “Since the mid-1960s, American Indians had been on a mission to break into Alcatraz. After the famed prison shuttered its doors in 1963, Bay Area Native Americans began lobbying to have the island redeveloped as an Indian cultural center and school…. When an October 1969 fire destroyed San Francisco’s American Indian Center, an activist group known as “Indians of All Tribes” set their sights on the unused land at Alcatraz. A handful of protestors first journeyed to the island on November 9, 1969 under the leadership of Mohawk college student Richard Oakes. They only stayed for a night before the authorities removed them … Indians of All Tribes made a final attempt to seize Alcatraz in the early morning hours of November 20, 1969—this time with an occupation force of 89 men, women and children. After sailing through San Francisco Bay under cover of darkness, the Indians landed at Alcatraz and claimed the island for all the tribes of North America…. [G]overnment officials finally quashed the occupation on June 11, 1971, when armed federal marshals descended on the island and removed the last of its Indian residents.”