Colin Kaepernick will release a memoir through his own Kaepernick Publishing, which was announced on Thursday, Feb. 13.
In a statement, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback said he hopes the memoir will explain how he went from football player to activist, and he hopes it will motivate others to fight racial injustice.
Kaepernick began kneeling for “The Star-Spangled Banner” at NFL games in 2016 to protest racism and police brutality against Black people in the United States.
His actions caused much controversy with some NFL fans, other players and President Donald Trump.
The general talk was that Kaepernick and the other players that he inspired to kneel were being disrespectful to American soldiers.
“My protest was the culmination of years of thought and experiences, of learning and unlearning,” said Kaepernick in his statement. “I want to tell the story of my evolution and the events that led me to protest systemic oppression, in hopes that it will inspire others to rise in action.”
In November, Kaepernick held a workout at Charles Drew High School in the Atlanta suburb of Riverdale, Georgia, one that was supposed to take place at the Atlanta Falcons’ training facility in Flowery Branch after being set up by the NFL.
The idea was to see if teams in the league were interested in the quarterback.
But, at the eleventh hour, Kaepernick moved the workout because he wanted there to be more transparency surrounding it, and he didn’t want to sign the league’s liability waiver either.
Scouts from all 32 NFL teams were invited and it was said 25 of them were either at or heading to the Falcons’ training facility. But once everything was moved, only eight of those team reps showed up to the high school.
Then, in December, in an NFL owners meeting, league commissioner Roger Goodell implied that Kaepernick wouldn’t be getting any more chances to play in the NFL.
“We’ve moved on here,” Goodell said.
But Kaepernick told USA Today that he still wants to play in the NFL.
“My desire to play football is still there,” he explained. “I still train five days a week. I’m ready to go, I’m ready for a phone call, tryout, workout at any point in time. I’m still waiting on the owners and their partners to stop running from this situation. So I hope I get a call this offseason. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Kaepernick also explained why he started his own publishing company, which has to do with creating opportunities for Black and Brown writers and inspiring them to own their content.
“It’s not just my control over stories,” Kaepernick said. “We wanted to be able to put the power back into the hands of the people that are telling the stories and the people that are writing the stories and creating them.”
The activist’s memoir will be released this year, and there will be an audio version as well, as Kaepernick has partnered with Audible.
