Jackie Robinson And The Black Lives Matter Movement

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Pages: 3

Recently San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has come under fire from the nation. Kaepernick refuses to stand for the nation anthem. He has said "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
Kaepernick has had copious different responses to him taking a knee during the national anthem. Some are disgust and hatred, but others have been support and admiration. Numerous people have compared Kaepernick to Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali. He is following in the footsteps of Robinson and Ali in trying to facilitate change in the United States and with the Black Lives Matter Movement. This is not the first time in history when a professional athlete has protested what is happening in the United States and it won’t be the last.
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Jackie Robinson became the first black player to play in a Major League baseball game. The day he stepped onto Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947 he broke the color barrier, and paved the way for other black athletes. Robinson went on to become a civil rights activist, and a leader of the black community. Jackie Robinson is regarded as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. Jackie Robinson isn’t here today to tell us what he would think of Kaepernick’s protest. But he did emanate the same belief about the national anthem as Kaepernick in his 1972 autobiography, writing, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white