Ten years after Colin Kaepernick first drew national attention for taking a knee in protest during the national anthem before a preseason game, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback is set to tell his life story in a memoir titled “The Perilous Fight,” which will be published Sept. 15.
The book’s publisher, Legacy Lit, told the Associated Press it is “equal parts memoir and manifesto.”
Kaepernick, whose career is best known for his activism, first addressed his protest during the national anthem after the 49ers’ third preseason game on Aug. 27, 2016, telling NFL Media, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”
Before that preseason, he had been vocal about his feelings regarding the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, among other incidents. Kaepernick’s protest of the anthem continued throughout the 2016 season.
“People saw the moment. But they didn’t see the years that made it possible: the questions about who I was; the injustices I could no longer ignore; the voices of those who came before me that I carried into that stadium,” Kaepernick said in a statement Tuesday about the memoir, according to the AP. “That journey, from a Black kid navigating an identity the world didn’t always make space for, to an athlete who realized the game was bigger than football, shaped everything. When I took a knee, it wasn’t a sudden act.”
Kaepernick’s activism in 2016 coincided with an intensifying political climate. As Kaepernick kneeled before each game of the 2016 season, Donald Trump was elected president for his first term in the fall of 2016. In 2017, Trump singled out Kaepernick multiple times and said players who took a knee during the anthem were “sons of b—-es” who should be fired, leading to a wave of protests around the league.
After the 2016 season, the 49ers hired head coach Kyle Shanahan, prompting Kaepernick to opt out of his contract before free agency began in 2017. Though he has been invited for workouts by teams — namely, the Seattle Seahawks in 2020 and the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022 — Kaepernick was never signed by an NFL organization again. Over the years, Kaepernick has maintained that he’s been training to be ready to make a comeback to the NFL. Kaepernick will turn 39 years old later this year.
In 69 career games, 58 starts, he totaled 12,271 passing yards with 72 passing touchdowns and 30 interceptions, plus 2,300 rushing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns. He led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance in 2013 and started all 16 games for the team in 2013 and 2014.
In his final two NFL seasons, Kaepernick battled with Blaine Gabbert for the starting quarterback job. He went 1-10 in his 11 starts in 2016, throwing 16 touchdowns to four interceptions and posting a quarterback rating of 90.7.