WEBVTT - Bonus Episode: From King to Kaepernick 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:05.000 Even half a century after his death, Martin Luther King 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.119 Jr's presence continues to be felt in our current debates 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:12.080 on issues of social justice and civil rights. This past January, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.720 the New Yorker magazine put Dr King on its cover 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.400 yet again, this time kneeling next to professional football players 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.360 Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett in protest of police brutality 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.000 in America. Taking a knee would not have been a 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.159 novel active protests for King. Not long after the New 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.880 Yorker cover was published, images of Doctor King kneeling alongside 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.440 civil rights protesters went viral across social media. Still, the 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.960 placement of a figure like King next to the controversial 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.879 football players did not go over well in all quarters. 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.599 King's own niece, Salvida expressed her reservations about Kaepernick's protest 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.720 during an interview on Fox News. Well, he's got the 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.880 method down pat taking a knee, but he's forgetting the message. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.040 Martin Luther King Jr. And my dad, Reverend A. D. King, 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.000 And there are pictures out there on the net of 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.760 them both taking the knee along with other civil rights leaders. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.240 But when they took that knee, it was in prayer. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.600 So without that kind of prayer. When you take the knee, 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.479 it is just a symbol. Was kaepernick silent protest during 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.040 the national anthem just a symbolic gesture? Would Dr King 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.120 be taking a knee alongside Kaepernick if he were here today? 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.640 In this special bonus episode of The Thread, we explore 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.759 these questions and some of the lessons from the civil 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.840 rights movement that are still relevant to non violent protests today, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.760 including those organized by Kaepernick and by the March for 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.679 Our Lives movement against gun violence that was started by 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:45.240 students from Parkland High School in Florida. Welcome to The Thread, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.480 a podcast where we examine the interlocking lives and events 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.320 of history. I'm Sean Braswell. This past season on The Thread, 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.200 we explored the history of a revolutionary and even dangerous idea, 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.080 non violent resistance. We witnessed how the idea dre me 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.080 through the minds of some remarkable individuals and across the 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.400 globe for nearly two centuries to become a powerful agent 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.000 for social change. And it's an idea and a method 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:17.680 of protest that continues to shake and disrupt our world today. 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.919 San Francisco forty quarterback Colin Kaepernick started to take a 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.200 knee during the u S national anthem in it's the 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.600 rare occasion when sports and politics collide at An NFL 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.840 quarterback has certainly ignited a firestorm. We're talking about Colin Kaepernick. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:38.359 Kaepernick explained the motivation behind his protest when they're significant change, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.639 and I feel like that flag represents were supposed to 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.679 represent in this country, is representing people the way that's 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.720 opposed to I'll stand. And as that simple act of 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.320 defiance began to spread the stadiums across the league, politicians, pundits, 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.400 and athletes from all across the spectrum voice their opinions 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.680 about it. Even the President of the United States. Wouldn't 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.760 you love to see one of these NFL owners when 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.400 somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.840 a drop the field right now out. He's fired, fired 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.000 Like Donald Trump. Many Americans have been outraged by Kaepernick's protest, 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.920 but they also can't seem to avoid talking about it, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.440 and that's kind of the point. Non violent resistance is 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.600 in part about trying to focus the eyes of the 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:32.640 world upon an injustice. Such was the case with Colin Kaepernick. 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.320 In weeks following his nonviolent protest. Various members of the 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.920 NFL and other athletes across the United States also began 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.760 kneeling for raising their fists like the nineteen sixty eight 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.560 Olympic Black Power salute during the playing of the u 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:50.120 S national anthem. Meanwhile, former NFL m v P Boomerissiasin 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.960 called Kaepernick's actions an embarrassment, while an anonymous NFL executive 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.120 called Kaepernick a trader. Kaepernick also received death threats, and 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.160 many NFL fans took to social media to post videos 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:07.520 of them burning Kaepernick's jersey. In September, President Trump sent 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.320 out multiple tweets in which he advocated that NFL players 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.760 should be either fired or suspended if they failed to 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.040 stand up for the national anthem. In response, many NFL 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.599 teams and players stood together to protest Trump's opinion. The 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.760 players knelt, locked arms, or remained in the locker room 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:27.040 during the playing of the national anthem. Before the longtime 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.200 rivals faced off on Thursday Night Football, both the hometown 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.400 Green Bay Packers and the visiting Chicago Bears stood and 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.880 locked arms with their teammates in a show of unity 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.719 during the national anthem. After opting out of his contract, 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.040 with the forty nine and seventeen Kaepernick went on as 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.880 an unsigned free agent, leading to allegations that he was 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.280 being blackballed because of his on field political actions as 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.560 opposed to his performance. The legendary boxer Muhammad Ali was 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.640 heavily penalized in his own career for protesting the Vietnam 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.680 War by refusing to serve in the military. Forty years later, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.400 Paepernick saw his own career come to a standstill. Ali's widow, Lonnie, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.000 drew parallels between the two athletes and activists like Mohammed. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.000 She told Sports Illustrated, Colin is a man who stands 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.440 on his convictions with confidence and courage, undaunted by the 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.120 personal sacrifices he has had to make to have his 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.600 message heard. As of this recording, Colin Kaepernick, who led 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.080 the forty Niners to the Super Bowl in twelve and 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:36.120 the NFC Championship Game, remains off the field. The similar 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.240 attention grabbing strategy employed by Dr King and Colin Kaepernick 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.680 are not the only place where the civil rights movement 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.600 overlaps with stories in the news today. In two thousand eighteen, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.560 a group of students in Parkland, Florida, decided to push 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.760 their leaders for gun control reforms after a devastating shooting 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.160 at their high school. This is Alex Dockerty, the Washington 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.200 correspondent from the Miami Herald. A week after the be 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.920 shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.719 a group of about two dozen or so UM high 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.840 school students banded together and basically decided that you know, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.240 this was this was a breaking point for them and 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.560 enough was enough. And they began to organize and it 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.560 became a very fast moving political movement that gained massive 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.839 attention both from the media and uh from from folks 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.600 around the country. Student leaders from Parkland, like Immi Gonzalez, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.719 made an effort to get all of those listening across 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.520 the country to comprehend the impact of the student's harrowing experience. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.640 No one could comprehend the devastating aftermath or how far 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.479 this would reach or where this would go. For those 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.440 who still can't comprehend because they refused to, I'll tell 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.119 you where. It went, right into the ground, six ft deep, 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.400 six minutes and twenty seconds with an a R fifteen. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.840 And my friend Carmen would never complain to me of 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.360 piano practice. You know, there was nothing that has been 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:09.000 done to this scale by especially folks of their age. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.880 You know, kids who are between the ages of fifteen 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.240 and seventeen have never become the national faces of a 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.920 sustained protest movement like this. Well, the March for Our 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.920 Lives protests today have undoubtedly been influenced by previous demonstrations 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.680 like those in Birmingham, Alabama. The Parkland teenagers have also 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.480 managed to transcend them in important and new ways. Alex Docherty, Again, 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.240 what I think makes the advocacy that the March for 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.840 Our Lives students engaged in so unique was that it 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.360 didn't come from a Martin Luther King or an older 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.840 figure saying, look, you know it would be a very 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.400 powerful message to have the kids on our side and 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.880 to have the kids conveying our argument. It was the 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:55.520 kids themselves driving that argument. The Parkland example also points 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.040 us to some key lessons from history. One of the 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:03.080 things that the current situation reminds us of this is 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.320 Timothy Jenkins, a civil rights leader who helped organize students 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.440 sit ins and other non violent protests during the nineteen sixties. 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.800 When you see the youngsters now who were speaking out 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.560 in the UH. The question against the gun violence in 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.240 Florida and elsewhere is that people do matter, and that 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:28.000 leadership comes from obscure places. I think one of the 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.560 things we need to remember is that small efforts can 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:38.040 become big efforts if they're persistently followed. And I think 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.360 often people say that the you know, the reason we 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.840 succeeded was because we had a nation behind us. That's 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:50.240 not correct. When dr king and and buyad Resting and 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:55.480 others UH were able to get things started, they were 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.160 not a majority. They were not even a movement. They 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:09.040 were just individuals who were committed. The protests started by 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.760 Colin Kaepernick and the Parkland students are not only both 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.160 non violent in nature, their protests aimed at curtailing different 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.840 types of violence, whether that perpetrated by firearms or at 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.440 the hands of law enforcement officials. Many remains skeptical that 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.319 the protesters will ever attain their stated goals. You know, 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.200 people are funny about non violence. If you if you say, 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.600 if you call it a non violent movement, people will 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:32.720 roll their eyes and say, oh, it will never work. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.040 This is Mark Kurlansky, author of non Violence, The History 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.520 of a Dangerous idea. But the fact is, there are 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:44.439 all these movements that are non violent, and the response 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:51.160 to the killing of black people by police, you know, 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.439 has the potential to lead to a very violent situation, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:02.880 and with a few exceptions, it hasn't. But social and 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.840 political change takes time. The civil rights movement did not 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.679 achieve its goals overnight, Timothy Jenkins again, and I think 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:14.280 it's important for people to realize historically that this was 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.640 not something that was handed out without a lot of 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:23.400 blood and sacrifice. Frederick Douglas said, power concedes nothing without 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.920 a demand. It never has and it never will. It's 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.080 going to be a hard fought fight each step of 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.240 the way, and that means that people have to be 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:53.840 aware that what is history is not over. The Threat 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.360 is produced by Libby Coleman, Robert Coulos, Sofia Perpetua, and 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.400 meet Sean braswell Chris hoff Engineered Ship. To learn more 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.080 about the thread, visit AUSI dot com, slash the thread 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.920 all one word, and make sure to subscribe to the 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.800 thread on Apple podcasts, follow us on I Heart Radio 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.000 or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.840 at AUSI dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. If 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.400 you love surprising, engaging stories from history, look no further 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.439 than the flashback section of aus dot com. That's o 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:46.640 z y dot com.