(CNN) — It was ultimately a means of taking on police brutality and systemic racial injustice, but former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick states his choice to kneel in protest during the pregame National Anthem began with one man.
Mario Woods.
“The discussion happened soon after the execution of Mario Woods,” Kaepernick told Paper magazine, a book focusing on fashion and entertainment.
‘We have passed kneeling’
This was December 2, 2015, nine months prior to Kaepernick infamously opted to sit during the”Star-Spangled Banner” before his San Francisco 49ers taking the field. The protest later evolved into kneeling after one-fifth Seattle Seahawk and Green Beret Nate Boyer convinced Kaepernick it’d be more respectful to the nation’s army, the ex-quarterback has said.
Woods’ murdering in the Bayview area of San Francisco set a few months of protests. A report later indicated the 26-year-old had endured 21 gunshot wounds, including two to the mind and six at his back.
Authorities alleged that Woods had been a traumatic suspect who was on numerous drugs when confronted by authorities. Fire opened only after he refused to drop a knife, they stated.
Nike is siding with Kaepernick
Many cell phone movies of the incident, nevertheless, showed five officers unleashing a barrage of gunfire on Woods as he was surrounded by a sea of authorities. Critics of the police response said Woods was too far away from officers to present a valid threat of injury or death.
The episode led the US Justice Department to recommend widespread modifications in the San Francisco Police Department, but in addition, it resulted in a discussion between Kaepernick and his spouse, TV and radio character Nessa Diab, better known just as Nessa.
The group devised a plan, Kaepernick told Paper, which led to the launching of his Know Your Camp, which maintains itself as a youth initiative aimed at advancing”the liberation and well-being of brown and black communities throughout instruction, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization along with also the production of new methods that Boost the next generation of shift leaders”
“This movement needs all kinds of people,” Kaepernick said, according to the magazine. “From athletes to healers to artists and artists to both scholars and lawyers, we want everyone to contribute to the battle. The struggle is impacting all of us, period.”
After Woods’ departure, Kaepernick began reading books which might help him draw a blueprint for your own camp and what it would impart, Nessa told Paper. A Number of the novels dealt in social struggle, such as Alex Haley’s”The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Angela Davis'”Women, Race & Class” and Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton’s autobiography,”Revolutionary Suicide.”
“If Colin was not reviewing a playbook,” Nessa told the magazine,”that he had been reading a history book”
Kaepernick, that led the 49ers into the 2013 Super Bowl, has not played more than 900 days, his last game coming January 1, 2017, in a reduction to the Seattle Seahawks.
He and former teammate Eric Reid, now of the Carolina Panthers, filed grievances alleging groups were keeping them from playing due to their activism. The two players settled their cases in February against the NFL.
Read more: footballleagueworld.com
