Protests in American Sports

In 2016, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick first “took a knee” during the playing of the American national anthem, protesting racism in American society. As a result, his contract with the San Francisco Giants was not renewed, no other NFL team offered the superstar a job, and he was severely criticized by even the president of the U.S.

Within the next several years, however, inspired in part by Kaepernick, protests with participants of various colors became a means of drawing attention to the need for major changes in how Blacks and other people of color are abused. In 2020, the NBA players led by LeBron James boycotted games in the delayed season in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Most surprisingly, in June 2020, Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in NASCAR, placed a Black Lives Matter design on his car and another design with one black arm and one white arm locked in unity. Given that NASCAR has traditionally been supported by whites who sometimes wave Confederate flags at the race, this was a momentous occasion. But no one expected that every other driver and all of the pit crews would gather to escort his car down the race track before the beginning of a competition. A few years earlier, that would have been absolutely unimaginable.

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