Best Of: Colin Kaepernick / Danielle Brooks

September 19, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

At eight years old, Colin Kaepernick was walking home from playing with friends in Turlock, California, when a group of white middle schoolers pulled him against a rose tree, wrapped a rope around him, and told him to "go back to Africa." A neighbor driving by broke it up. Kaepernick, a Black boy adopted by white parents, went home, cleaned himself up, and never told his family. "I didn't think they would believe me," he says now. That instinct—that his white parents could not fully see or protect him from the racial violence he would face—shaped the rest of his life. A decade after he took a knee during the national anthem and was effectively banned from the NFL, Kaepernick spoke with Fresh Air about his new memoir, The Perilous Fight, and the protest whose point, he argues, is still being missed.

The Childhood That Shaped the Protest

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Show Open & Host Introduction** - Tanya Mosley previews the two main interviews: Colin Kaepernick on his memoir *The Perilous Fight* and actor Danielle Brooks.
2 (02:49) **Colin Kaepernick Interview Begins** - Tanya Mosley introduces Kaepernick, framing his 2016 protest and its aftermath, including his NFL blackballing and new memoir.
3 (08:08) **Race and Upbringing with White Parents** - Kaepernick describes the cultural tension at home over his blackness.
4 (10:59) **Sports as Escape and Objective Ground** - Kaepernick explains how athletics provided a refuge from subjective bias.
5 (12:03) **The 2016 Anthem Protest: Context and Motivation** - Kaepernick takes us to the moment he first sat during the national anthem.
6 (16:32) **The NFL’s Demand for Silence and the Protest’s True Target** - Kaepernick reveals that teams, like the Seahawks, demanded he stop kneeling before they’d work him out.
7 (18:54) **NFL’s Lip Service vs. Action** - Kaepernick critiques Commissioner Roger Goodell’s statement that Black Lives Matter.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Colin Kaepernick

Show Notes

10 years ago, former 49ers NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence against Black people. After the season ended, he never played in the NFL again. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about his childhood, football career, and activism. His memoir is his The Perilous Fight.

Actor Danielle Brooks first became known as Taystee on Orange Is the New Black. She spoke with Terry Gross about that series, growing up singing in her parents’ church, and landing the role of Sofia in "The Color Purple," both on Broadway and the film adaptation.

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