It’s been just over four years since Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the singing of the National Anthem at an NFL game, in protest of police brutality and racism. Kaepernick was effectively booted out of the league, and large swaths of America considered him persona non grata. Even with the NFL recently apologizing for how they treated players who knelt for the anthem, even with this year’s increasing support in the country for the Black Lives Matter movement, Kaepernick still hasn’t been signed back to a team. Our latest installation, by illustrator Fred Harper, celebrates Kaepernick’s principled strength and conviction in the face of public, financial, and political pressure to “shut up and play.”

Fred told us:

I first saw Colin Kaepernick kneeling to protest respectfully when it made the news in 2016. I was and still am a Steelers fan so I wasn't aware of him or his issues until it was a news story. His statement about his reasons for his simple act of protest were valid to me. The backlash of the ignorant and the bigotry was so offensive to me that I had to make some sort of image in solidarity. In talking with friends it was pointed out that it was like going up against the Roman Empire. I borrowed from a classic painting by Jean-Leon Gerome, of a gladiator waiting for the signal from the emperor for the thumb's up or down. Life or death. Kaepernick is the subject of the mob, the public, the "emperor". He is questioning authority. Authority always needs to be made accountable no matter the scale. It should always be trying to earn our respect.