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

The Knee That Split a Nation: How One Quarterback’s Silence Reshaped American Sports

Goldlaner.com – Nearly a decade after a single gesture during a football warm-up fractured the cultural landscape of American athletics, the image of a quarterback kneeling beneath the stars of the national anthem still carries the weight of a national reckoning. What began as a quiet, seated act of dissent in a preseason stadium in August 2016 evolved into a symbol so potent that it outlived the sport itself, reshaping how athletes, fans, and politicians understood the intersection of race, governance, and public performance.

From Silence to Symbol

The sequence of events that produced that symbol did not begin with a knee. It began with a chair. On August 14, 2016, before the San Francisco 49ers opened their preseason schedule against the Houston Texans, quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit through “The Star-Spangled Banner” rather than stand. The following week, facing the Denver Broncos, he repeated the gesture. Because he did not suit up for either contest, the acts passed almost unnoticed by the broader public.

Everything shifted on August 26. Kaepernick returned to uniform for the 49ers’ preseason matchup with the Green Bay Packers and, once again, remained seated during the anthem. This time, millions of television viewers watched. The act was visible, undeniable, and impossible to dismiss as a non-event.

When reporters pressed him afterward, the then-28-year-old offered no softened explanation. Speaking to longtime NFL reporter Steve Wyche, he laid out his reasoning in blunt, unflinching terms:

“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. A week later, on September 1, 2016, before a preseason game against the San Diego Chargers, Kaepernick elevated his protest from sitting to kneeling, joined by teammate Eric Reid. The photograph of two players bent at the knee beneath the stadium lights became, within days, one of the most recognizable images of 2010s sports culture.

The Political Ground Beneath the Gesture

Understanding why the protest landed with such force requires looking beyond the gridiron. The decade preceding 2016 had seen racial tensions in the United States escalate to levels many Americans found difficult to reconcile with the civil-rights victories of the prior century. The Black Lives Matter movement had surged into national consciousness in 2013 after George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood-watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, was acquitted of charges connected to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin the previous year. Nearly fifty years had elapsed since Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, yet systemic inequality and police violence continued to define the lived experience of millions.

Tensions reached a critical inflection point in July 2016. Alton Sterling was shot by law enforcement officers in Louisiana, and just one day later, Philando Castile was killed by a police officer in Minnesota. Castile’s death prompted then-Governor Mark Dayton to pose a question at a press conference that echoed across 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. He described Sterling’s death as a modern-day “lynching” and said the man had been “executed.” After Castile was killed less than twenty-four hours later, 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 a visible, repeated act during the 2016 NFL preseason.

A Nation Divided Over a Silent Act

Renée Graham, associate editor and columnist at The Boston Globe, has noted 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,” she observed. The silence of the gesture, paradoxically, made it louder than any shout could have been.

When the regular season arrived, Kaepernick continued his silent boycott of the anthem. The response from the public was swift and often hostile. Stadiums across the country erupted in boos. Death threats followed. Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaking on KIRO radio in Seattle, called the protest a “terrible thing” and suggested Kaepernick should “find a country that works better for him.” Sam Farmer, sports journalist at the Los Angeles Times, summarized the atmosphere: “The whole country was wrapped up in this controversy.”

Yet the quarterback, coming off a disappointing and injury-plagued 2015 season in which he had already lost his starting role, appeared undeterred. Football had ceased to be his primary concern. What mattered, in his framing, was whether a nation would reckon with the bodies in its streets while its athletes performed beneath its flag.

Lasting Implications

The protest did not end with the 2016 season. It catalyzed a broader conversation about athlete voice, corporate sponsorship, and the role of sports as a platform for civic expression. Subsequent seasons saw players, coaches, and even entire franchises adopt variations of the gesture, while legislative efforts in several states sought to restrict anthem protests in public schools. The image of the kneeling quarterback became a shorthand for a generation’s demand that the promise of equality, articulated half a century earlier, finally be honored in practice rather than merely recited in ceremony.

Nearly ten years on, the question Kaepernick posed in that August press conference has not been answered. It has, however, been made impossible to ignore.