Photo by Amari Kenoly for Kaepernick Media
Super Bowl QB Colin Kaepernick, and holder of the all-time NFL record for most rushing yards in a game by a quarterback, took a knee during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner” in 2016 to bring attention to systemic oppressions—specifically police terrorism—against Black and Brown people. For his stance, he has been denied employment by the league to this day.
Since 2016, he has founded and helped to fund three organizations—Know Your Rights Camp, Kaepernick Media, and Kaepernick Publishing—that together advance the liberation of Black and Brown people through storytelling, systems change, and political education.
Kaepernick has been awarded a number of prestigious honors including Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope honor, GQ magazine’s Citizen of the Year, the NFL’s Len Eshmont Award, the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, the ACLU’s Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, and the Puffin/Nation Institute’s Prize for Creative Citizenship.
In 2019, Kaepernick helped Nike win an Emmy for its “Dream Crazy'' commercial. In 2020, his Ben & Jerry's vegan ice cream flavor, Change the Whirled, became an instant bestselling flavor and represented the first time a Black person was featured on a full-time Ben & Jerry's flavor. Change the Whirled has helped to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Know Your Rights Camp.
In 2021, he released Colin in Black & White, a 6-episode limited series on Netflix exploring his high school years. The show won two NAACP Image Awards. In 2022, he became a New York Times bestselling author for his acclaimed children's picture book, I Color Myself Different. 2023 has already been another watershed year for Kaepernick. Released in February, he executive produced the television series Killing County for Hulu which explores the violence of policing in Bakersfield, California and what can be done about it. In March, he published a graphic novel memoir about his high school years entitled Change the Game. He partnered with Audible on an audio adaptation of the project which featured his first-person narration.
