While the debate around anthem protests in the NFL began in 2016 with Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the anthem before games, the issue simmered over the offseason when Kaepernick inexplicably wasn’t offered by a contract by any team in the league, and flared again when more players took a knee in early-season games, prompting President Trump’s comment on Friday that any player protesting should be cut or suspended: “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!”
Setting aside for a moment the question of freedom of speech, the enduring controversy around the anthem speaks to the NFL’s unique position. It is perhaps the one institution in America today where such a multi-faceted debate—encompassing entertainment and politics, military service and race relations, free speech and patriotism—could resonate so broadly.
Football players have come together to address racial injustice before. In January of 1965, 80 players from the American Football League converged on New Orleans for the AFL All-Star Game. From the moment they arrived at the airport, many black players were subjected to virulent racism, exclusion and intimidation. Outside one nightclub, a bouncer pulled a gun on the Chargers’ Ernie Ladd and told him he couldn’t enter. In the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Ladd’s teammate Earl Faison heard two locals discussing him, speculating whether he was Ladd. “No,” concluded one man, within Faison’s earshot. “Ernie Ladd’s a bigger n—-r than that. That Ladd is a big n—-r.”
The 21 black players, after meeting among themselves to discuss their experience, voted to boycott the game. Some white players, like future Hall of Famer Ron Mix of the San Diego Chargers, joined in. A day later, the AFL owners chose to support their players, and moved the game from New Orleans to Houston. It marked one of the first instances of professional athletes working together to make a social statement.
During much of the ’70s and ’80s, pro football players spent more time advocating for their own rights, finally achieving a system of free agency in 1992, nearly two decades after Major League Baseball players gained the right.
More recently, players have returned to a focus on broader social issues. In 2014, a group of St. Louis Rams players took the field in a “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture, in a sign of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown. Kevin Demoff, the Rams executive vice president of football operations, defended the players’ action. “I do believe that supporting our players’ First Amendment rights and supporting local law enforcement are not mutually exclusive,” he said.