I am Leicester Hall from Deadline with a special preview of my new podcast
before and after. In our premier episode I sit down with Colin Kaepernick, the former
“quarterback who sparked a firestorm when he took a knee during the National Anthem.”
It's been 10 years since you famously took that knee. What were you hoping to achieve with the protests? To collectively move us forward as a society. Very specifically fighting against police killing black folks, but also looking at systemic oppression holistically as it gets society thinking and moving in the
direction of addressing these issues to create a better society. We have to do
something different and there has to be motion and momentum and movement around that.
“When you finally took that knee, what was the feeling? Where was your head?”
I had a few different thoughts. Was thinking about all the people before me and the sacrifices that they had made, how far they were willing to go, whether that's the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, whether that's Rosa Parks, whether that's Malcolm Mex, whether that's MLK, we saw people willing to go extraordinary lengths because they believed that we could be better and they
believed that we could bring about rights and equity in justice for everyone and
“to think about the sacrifices that people before us had made. If they're willing”
to go that far, how far should we be willing to go? What is the cost and the expense of doing nothing? I got to see different cities respond differently to me. We went to Buffalo, New York, saw people light my jersey on fire and throw in from our bus as we're pulling in for the game. I saw people with shirts that they were selling that had me within the scope of a sniper rifle. I also saw
down San Diego, the first time we took a knee, a black woman who had a sign
cappernick for president. What did it feel like to be the brunt of such anger and real-life death threats? It was very real. There was a lot of hate and anger that came away. The word death threats that came away. We had people try to send bombs to our house. We got those phone calls and there is a realization of, okay, I have to move differently through the world right now. I wasn't going to
let them stop me or us from doing that work and moving forward. Thanks for listening. Search before and after with Lester Holt to hear the full episode now. This fall on NBC. The premier of the line of fire, a thrilling new crime drama. The world sees us as heroes but they don't know what the job really costs.
One family of federal agents. It's one thing to put yourself in danger. It's different when it's your family. Balance is duty to their country. Massacent is still out there. And each other. How do you protect the world and the people you love at the same time? Every case gets home online of fire, premiering Monday's September 21st on NBC.
