
On The Shoulders Of Giants

When Colin Kaepernick stopped standing for the national anthem at NFL games it sparked a nationwide conversation about patriotism and police brutality. And in the last few weeks that conversation was rekindled when the NFL announced a deal with Jay-Z that some thought moved attention away from Kaepernick's continued absence from the league. The discussion about the utility of athletes taking a stand is nothing new — black athletes using their platform to protest injustice has long been a tradition in American history.
In this early episode we explore three stories of protest that are rarely told but essential to understanding the current debate: the heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, the sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and the basketball player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.
If you would like to read more about these athletes:
- Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey C. Ward
- My Life and Battles by Jack Johnson
- Wilma Rudolph: A Biography by Maureen M. Smith
- A People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play by Dave Zirin
- "Still No Anthem, Still No Regrets for Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf" by Jesse Washington
- "Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, NBA-exiled after protesting during the anthem, opens up about the state of activism in professional sports" by Seerat Sohi
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Correction Dec. 9, 2019
A previous version of this story misspelled Colin Kaepernick's last name as Capernick.