Speaker 1: Even half a century after his death, Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Jr's presence continues to be felt in our current debates
Speaker 1: on issues of social justice and civil rights. This past January,
Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine put Dr King on its cover
Speaker 1: yet again, this time kneeling next to professional football players
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett in protest of police brutality
Speaker 1: in America. Taking a knee would not have been a
Speaker 1: novel active protests for King. Not long after the New
Speaker 1: Yorker cover was published, images of Doctor King kneeling alongside
Speaker 1: civil rights protesters went viral across social media. Still, the
Speaker 1: placement of a figure like King next to the controversial
Speaker 1: football players did not go over well in all quarters.
Speaker 1: King's own niece, Salvida expressed her reservations about Kaepernick's protest
Speaker 1: during an interview on Fox News. Well, he's got the
Speaker 1: method down pat taking a knee, but he's forgetting the message.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. And my dad, Reverend A. D. King,
Speaker 1: And there are pictures out there on the net of
Speaker 1: them both taking the knee along with other civil rights leaders.
Speaker 1: But when they took that knee, it was in prayer.
Speaker 1: So without that kind of prayer. When you take the knee,
Speaker 1: it is just a symbol. Was kaepernick silent protest during
Speaker 1: the national anthem just a symbolic gesture? Would Dr King
Speaker 1: be taking a knee alongside Kaepernick if he were here today?
Speaker 1: In this special bonus episode of The Thread, we explore
Speaker 1: these questions and some of the lessons from the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement that are still relevant to non violent protests today,
Speaker 1: including those organized by Kaepernick and by the March for
Speaker 1: Our Lives movement against gun violence that was started by
Speaker 1: students from Parkland High School in Florida. Welcome to The Thread,
Speaker 1: a podcast where we examine the interlocking lives and events
Speaker 1: of history. I'm Sean Braswell. This past season on The Thread,
Speaker 1: we explored the history of a revolutionary and even dangerous idea,
Speaker 1: non violent resistance. We witnessed how the idea dre me
Speaker 1: through the minds of some remarkable individuals and across the
Speaker 1: globe for nearly two centuries to become a powerful agent
Speaker 1: for social change. And it's an idea and a method
Speaker 1: of protest that continues to shake and disrupt our world today.
Speaker 1: San Francisco forty quarterback Colin Kaepernick started to take a
Speaker 1: knee during the u S national anthem in it's the
Speaker 1: rare occasion when sports and politics collide at An NFL
Speaker 1: quarterback has certainly ignited a firestorm. We're talking about Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 1: Kaepernick explained the motivation behind his protest when they're significant change,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that flag represents were supposed to
Speaker 1: represent in this country, is representing people the way that's
Speaker 1: opposed to I'll stand. And as that simple act of
Speaker 1: defiance began to spread the stadiums across the league, politicians, pundits,
Speaker 1: and athletes from all across the spectrum voice their opinions
Speaker 1: about it. Even the President of the United States. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: you love to see one of these NFL owners when
Speaker 1: somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of
Speaker 1: a drop the field right now out. He's fired, fired
Speaker 1: Like Donald Trump. Many Americans have been outraged by Kaepernick's protest,
Speaker 1: but they also can't seem to avoid talking about it,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the point. Non violent resistance is
Speaker 1: in part about trying to focus the eyes of the
Speaker 1: world upon an injustice. Such was the case with Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 1: In weeks following his nonviolent protest. Various members of the
Speaker 1: NFL and other athletes across the United States also began
Speaker 1: kneeling for raising their fists like the nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: Olympic Black Power salute during the playing of the u
Speaker 1: S national anthem. Meanwhile, former NFL m v P Boomerissiasin
Speaker 1: called Kaepernick's actions an embarrassment, while an anonymous NFL executive
Speaker 1: called Kaepernick a trader. Kaepernick also received death threats, and
Speaker 1: many NFL fans took to social media to post videos
Speaker 1: of them burning Kaepernick's jersey. In September, President Trump sent
Speaker 1: out multiple tweets in which he advocated that NFL players
Speaker 1: should be either fired or suspended if they failed to
Speaker 1: stand up for the national anthem. In response, many NFL
Speaker 1: teams and players stood together to protest Trump's opinion. The
Speaker 1: players knelt, locked arms, or remained in the locker room
Speaker 1: during the playing of the national anthem. Before the longtime
Speaker 1: rivals faced off on Thursday Night Football, both the hometown
Speaker 1: Green Bay Packers and the visiting Chicago Bears stood and
Speaker 1: locked arms with their teammates in a show of unity
Speaker 1: during the national anthem. After opting out of his contract,
Speaker 1: with the forty nine and seventeen Kaepernick went on as
Speaker 1: an unsigned free agent, leading to allegations that he was
Speaker 1: being blackballed because of his on field political actions as
Speaker 1: opposed to his performance. The legendary boxer Muhammad Ali was
Speaker 1: heavily penalized in his own career for protesting the Vietnam
Speaker 1: War by refusing to serve in the military. Forty years later,
Speaker 1: Paepernick saw his own career come to a standstill. Ali's widow, Lonnie,
Speaker 1: drew parallels between the two athletes and activists like Mohammed.
Speaker 1: She told Sports Illustrated, Colin is a man who stands
Speaker 1: on his convictions with confidence and courage, undaunted by the
Speaker 1: personal sacrifices he has had to make to have his
Speaker 1: message heard. As of this recording, Colin Kaepernick, who led
Speaker 1: the forty Niners to the Super Bowl in twelve and
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship Game, remains off the field. The similar
Speaker 1: attention grabbing strategy employed by Dr King and Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: are not the only place where the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: overlaps with stories in the news today. In two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: a group of students in Parkland, Florida, decided to push
Speaker 1: their leaders for gun control reforms after a devastating shooting
Speaker 1: at their high school. This is Alex Dockerty, the Washington
Speaker 1: correspondent from the Miami Herald. A week after the be
Speaker 1: shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School,
Speaker 1: a group of about two dozen or so UM high
Speaker 1: school students banded together and basically decided that you know,
Speaker 1: this was this was a breaking point for them and
Speaker 1: enough was enough. And they began to organize and it
Speaker 1: became a very fast moving political movement that gained massive
Speaker 1: attention both from the media and uh from from folks
Speaker 1: around the country. Student leaders from Parkland, like Immi Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: made an effort to get all of those listening across
Speaker 1: the country to comprehend the impact of the student's harrowing experience.
Speaker 1: No one could comprehend the devastating aftermath or how far
Speaker 1: this would reach or where this would go. For those
Speaker 1: who still can't comprehend because they refused to, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you where. It went, right into the ground, six ft deep,
Speaker 1: six minutes and twenty seconds with an a R fifteen.
Speaker 1: And my friend Carmen would never complain to me of
Speaker 1: piano practice. You know, there was nothing that has been
Speaker 1: done to this scale by especially folks of their age.
Speaker 1: You know, kids who are between the ages of fifteen
Speaker 1: and seventeen have never become the national faces of a
Speaker 1: sustained protest movement like this. Well, the March for Our
Speaker 1: Lives protests today have undoubtedly been influenced by previous demonstrations
Speaker 1: like those in Birmingham, Alabama. The Parkland teenagers have also
Speaker 1: managed to transcend them in important and new ways. Alex Docherty, Again,
Speaker 1: what I think makes the advocacy that the March for
Speaker 1: Our Lives students engaged in so unique was that it
Speaker 1: didn't come from a Martin Luther King or an older
Speaker 1: figure saying, look, you know it would be a very
Speaker 1: powerful message to have the kids on our side and
Speaker 1: to have the kids conveying our argument. It was the
Speaker 1: kids themselves driving that argument. The Parkland example also points
Speaker 1: us to some key lessons from history. One of the
Speaker 1: things that the current situation reminds us of this is
Speaker 1: Timothy Jenkins, a civil rights leader who helped organize students
Speaker 1: sit ins and other non violent protests during the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: When you see the youngsters now who were speaking out
Speaker 1: in the UH. The question against the gun violence in
Speaker 1: Florida and elsewhere is that people do matter, and that
Speaker 1: leadership comes from obscure places. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things we need to remember is that small efforts can
Speaker 1: become big efforts if they're persistently followed. And I think
Speaker 1: often people say that the you know, the reason we
Speaker 1: succeeded was because we had a nation behind us. That's
Speaker 1: not correct. When dr king and and buyad Resting and
Speaker 1: others UH were able to get things started, they were
Speaker 1: not a majority. They were not even a movement. They
Speaker 1: were just individuals who were committed. The protests started by
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick and the Parkland students are not only both
Speaker 1: non violent in nature, their protests aimed at curtailing different
Speaker 1: types of violence, whether that perpetrated by firearms or at
Speaker 1: the hands of law enforcement officials. Many remains skeptical that
Speaker 1: the protesters will ever attain their stated goals. You know,
Speaker 1: people are funny about non violence. If you if you say,
Speaker 1: if you call it a non violent movement, people will
Speaker 1: roll their eyes and say, oh, it will never work.
Speaker 1: This is Mark Kurlansky, author of non Violence, The History
Speaker 1: of a Dangerous idea. But the fact is, there are
Speaker 1: all these movements that are non violent, and the response
Speaker 1: to the killing of black people by police, you know,
Speaker 1: has the potential to lead to a very violent situation,
Speaker 1: and with a few exceptions, it hasn't. But social and
Speaker 1: political change takes time. The civil rights movement did not
Speaker 1: achieve its goals overnight, Timothy Jenkins again, and I think
Speaker 1: it's important for people to realize historically that this was
Speaker 1: not something that was handed out without a lot of
Speaker 1: blood and sacrifice. Frederick Douglas said, power concedes nothing without
Speaker 1: a demand. It never has and it never will. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a hard fought fight each step of
Speaker 1: the way, and that means that people have to be
Speaker 1: aware that what is history is not over. The Threat
Speaker 1: is produced by Libby Coleman, Robert Coulos, Sofia Perpetua, and
Speaker 1: meet Sean braswell Chris hoff Engineered Ship. To learn more
Speaker 1: about the thread, visit AUSI dot com, slash the thread
Speaker 1: all one word, and make sure to subscribe to the
Speaker 1: thread on Apple podcasts, follow us on I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out
Speaker 1: at AUSI dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. If
Speaker 1: you love surprising, engaging stories from history, look no further
Speaker 1: than the flashback section of aus dot com. That's o
Speaker 1: z y dot com.