Taking a Knee: Colin Kaepernick and America's Forgotten Freedom Fighters

When Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers football team, "took a knee" during the playing of the National Anthem, he outlined his rationale for protest: "this country stands for freedom, liberty, and justice for all. And it's not happening for all right now." He also spoke specifically about police brutality and the killing of African American men and women at the hands of police: "There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's standards." However the reaction was that he was disrespecting the National Anthem, the flag and the military. James Bryant argues that the flag, the anthem, and the military could become so fully intertwined is a powerful indictment of the failure to teach history in the schools. He blames policy makers, textbook publishers, and colleges of education who are more interested in obedience and compliance than vision or integrity, having all played a role. Having fetishized the military, many Americans arrive at adulthood utterly ignorant of the men and women who, often without having ever worn the uniform, advanced the cause of freedom for Americans. It must be a matter of concern that both the flag and the national anthem have become synonymous with the military rather than the freedom, democracy, or even the rule of law. He surmises that have arrived at this troubling place in part due to what passes for historical study in the schools, which sanitizes, co-opts, or erases the troublemakers who painfully yet relentlessly pushed America towards the more perfect union Colin Kaepernick has told us he envisions and for which he is protesting. He examines five social studies/American history textbooks to get an idea of how they portray, approach, and/or discuss the movements and people--non-military--that have served as freedom fighters in American history.