Colin Kaepernick, 10 Years After the Protest That Changed His Life

Ten years after Colin Kaepernick first refused to stand for the national anthem, the former NFL quarterback is still training before dawn.

Most mornings, his day begins around 4:30 a.m. with a workout. Football, however, is no longer the center of his life. His focus has shifted toward fatherhood, business and the social-justice work that began with a quiet protest and ultimately transformed his career.

Kaepernick, now 38, is preparing to tell that story in greater detail with the release of his memoir, The Perilous Fight, on Sept. 15.

In a series of interviews with NBC News, Kaepernick reflected on the events of 2016, the backlash that followed, his departure from the NFL and the decade of activism that came afterward.

He also spoke about becoming a father to a 4-year-old daughter and how parenthood has changed his perspective on the work he still believes remains unfinished.

“Being a dad increases the responsibility and urgency of the work we’re doing,” Kaepernick said.

He wrote in his memoir that he does not want his daughter—or anyone watching his story—to conclude that standing up for Black Americans comes without consequences or that the fight was ultimately not worth pursuing.

The Protest Begins

Kaepernick’s protest began quietly.

On Aug. 14, 2016, during a San Francisco 49ers preseason game, he remained seated on the bench during the national anthem. At first, few people appeared to notice.

The idea had developed during months of rehabilitation following surgeries. With more time on his hands than ever before, Kaepernick immersed himself in books about Black history, liberation and racial inequality, including The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks.

As reports of police violence against Black Americans continued to dominate the news, Kaepernick began wrestling with how he could use his public platform.

After the 49ers’ third preseason game, he was finally asked why he had been sitting during the anthem.

His answer quickly became national news.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Network reporter Steve Wyche.

He said the issue was larger than football and pointed to police killings and what he viewed as a lack of accountability.

The reaction was immediate.

Some fans burned Kaepernick jerseys. Critics accused him of disrespecting the military and the American flag. Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump publicly criticized the quarterback and suggested he should find another country.

Kaepernick’s partner, Nessa, called him after the interview and asked how strongly he believed he had spoken.

He told her he thought his answer had been about a four on a scale of one to 10.

When the story exploded, she responded that it was clearly much bigger than that.

Why Kaepernick Knelt

Kaepernick’s decision to kneel rather than sit has become one of the most frequently discussed details of his protest.

For years, Army veteran Nate Boyer was widely credited with suggesting the gesture.

Kaepernick now says that account is incorrect.

According to Kaepernick, it was his teammate Eric Reid who first suggested kneeling.

Reid wanted to participate in the protest, and the two players discussed how they could demonstrate without appearing to disrespect members of the military.

Boyer, a former Green Beret and NFL player, had previously written an open letter expressing his concerns about Kaepernick’s protest while also saying he wanted to understand the quarterback’s reasoning.

The three men met before the Sept. 1, 2016, game. Boyer recalls discussing ways the players could protest while remaining respectful toward the military.

Kaepernick asked whether there was a form of protest that would not offend military personnel. Boyer said that some people would likely be offended regardless of what they did.

The conversation eventually turned toward kneeling.

Boyer has said he does not dispute Kaepernick’s account that Reid may have suggested it first.

Kaepernick believes the story that a white military veteran came up with the idea was more appealing to the media because it made the protest easier for some audiences to accept.

Kaepernick and Reid began kneeling during the anthem, and other athletes soon joined them.

The protest quickly became one of the most polarizing stories in American sports.

From Football Star to Free Agent

The controversy followed Kaepernick everywhere.

His clothing, relationships, political views and even his decision not to vote in the 2016 presidential election became subjects of public debate.

At the same time, some athletes and activists embraced his message and adopted similar forms of protest.

Kaepernick’s football career also began to change.

After leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl following the 2012 season and helping the team reach the NFC Championship Game, Kaepernick became a free agent after the 2016 season.

The 49ers informed him they would release him, and he entered free agency.

But despite his experience and previous success, opportunities failed to materialize.

Kaepernick says some coaches and executives privately expressed interest but told him that decisions were being made above them.

In 2017, he filed a grievance against the NFL under the league’s collective bargaining agreement, alleging that team owners had colluded to prevent him from being signed because of his protest.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell denied that Kaepernick had been blackballed and said individual teams were responsible for their own personnel decisions.

The NFL eventually settled Kaepernick’s grievance in 2019. The terms of the settlement were not publicly disclosed.

Kaepernick has said the experience convinced him that his absence from the league was not simply a matter of football.

“I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with Colin, we just didn’t get to the next level,” former Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll later said of the team’s discussions with Kaepernick.

The 2019 NFL Workout

In 2019, the NFL attempted to organize a workout for Kaepernick in front of representatives from all 32 teams.

The event fell apart shortly before it was scheduled to begin after Kaepernick objected to the terms of a waiver associated with the workout.

He instead organized his own workout at a nearby high school.

The episode generated another round of debate over whether Kaepernick genuinely wanted to return to professional football.

Kaepernick has maintained that he was willing to play and continued training as though another NFL opportunity might come.

He says he still trains that way today.

George Floyd Changes the Conversation

Then came 2020.

On May 25 of that year, George Floyd died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin was later convicted of murder and other charges.

Floyd’s death sparked protests across the United States and around the world.

For Kaepernick, the demonstrations represented a dramatic expansion of the conversation he had tried to start four years earlier.

People who had previously paid little attention to police violence were suddenly confronting the issue directly.

The NFL also changed its public messaging.

In June 2020, Commissioner Roger Goodell released a video in which the league condemned racism and systemic oppression and acknowledged that it should have listened more closely to players who had been protesting.

Kaepernick, however, remained skeptical of the league’s response.

He argued that the NFL’s public statements were largely the result of pressure from players and the broader public rather than a fundamental change in the organization.

The league subsequently expanded its social-justice initiatives, including its Inspire Change program, and said it had committed more than $575 million to related efforts since 2017.

The NFL told NBC News that the issues raised by Kaepernick and other players remain important and that the league continues to work with national and grassroots organizations.

A Different Kind of Career

While his NFL career ended, Kaepernick’s public work continued.

His Know Your Rights Camp has supported independent autopsies and provided legal grants and bail assistance. He has also become involved in media and technology ventures, including his production company, Kaepernick Media, and AI company Lumi Story.

He has also continued to speak selectively about politics and social issues.

One change from 2016 is that Kaepernick now says he has voted in the last two presidential elections. He acknowledges that choosing not to vote in 2016 was not the right strategy for him.

Still, he says he does not view himself as the sole leader of a movement.

“No individual should be speaking for everyone across the country,” he said. “It’s also being able to enable other people to step into leadership positions, because that’s what movements actually are.”

Fatherhood and the Future

Kaepernick says becoming a father has given his work an added sense of urgency.

His morning workout is now followed by helping his daughter prepare for school before he turns to his professional and advocacy work.

Fatherhood, he says, has changed the way he thinks about the future.

“You no longer have the luxury of thinking about it from a perspective of, it’s just me going through this world,” he said. “You think about it from the responsibility of creating an environment and a society that allows someone that is like your child to be able to grow up and thrive.”

Ten years after he first took a knee, Kaepernick remains outside the NFL.

He says he continues to train as though a return to football is possible, but his larger focus has become the work he believes he can do away from the field.

He does not spend much time thinking about how history will ultimately judge him.

“I don’t think about legacy a whole lot,” he said. “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.”

For Kaepernick, the story that began with a quiet decision on a football sideline is still unfolding.