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