Hello everybody and welcome back to my first Learning Portfolio Reflection Post of our Civil Rights Unit. In this post I will be answering the question “How can an individual change a system?” I will demonstrate that an individual can lead to change by showing two examples of people whose lives led to social change – one was a young boy in the 1950s and the other is a contemporary professional football player.

Emmett Till was a young African American boy who was killed when he was 14 by two white men. His death was particularly brutal and his mother chose to have an open casket at his funeral in order to draw attention to the horrors of his murder. Emmett’s death and his mother’s actions, helped drive change that led to improvements in civil rights.

Colin Kaepernick was a professional quarterback in the NFL. At the start of the 2016 season he began kneeling during the US National Anthem at the start of games in order to protest the treatment of black people in the US. Initially the reaction was fairly muted, but as more attention was given to his protest, other players also began to kneel. This resulted in widespread discussion throughout the country about the merits and method of his protest. While Kaepernick’s protest has not yet resulted in massive change, his actions as an individual have started the process.

Both Emmett Till and Colin Kaepernick’s stories are very similar yet have many differences. The biggest difference comes in the fact that Kaepernick chose to make his stance and Emmett Till obviously didn’t have any say in what happened to him. However in both cases they gave up something valuable to provoke conversion and help change the way people see things in the world. The response to Emmett Till’s death provoked a change in the civil rights laws and improved rights for coloured people at that time. Colin Kaepernick isn’t there yet. He has just settled his collusion lawsuit against the NFL for an undisclosed amount. As part of the settlement he signed a confidentiality agreement, which means he can no longer publicly talk about his fight with the NFL. At this point his career in the NFL would appear to be over. However, in September 2018 he became a major face of Nike advertising – he now has a new platform to raise awareness. The campaign stated “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything” with Kaepernick’s face right behind it. While some people were offended by the ad and threatened to boycott Nike, overall the reception to the ad was very positive and Nike stock and sales both rose significantly. Nike also knew what they wanted to stand for and that in the end they’d be on the right side of history.

I believe Kaepernick will continue to use his public profile to fight for improved rights for minorities in the US and eventually his actions will lead to real change.

About Emmett Till’s Death

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Emmett Till was a young African American boy who was raised just south of Chicago. He attended a “coloured only” school and was known as a funny, kind, and loveable guy. He was well known for always trying to cheer people up and make sure everyone around him was smiling. He lived alone with his mother Mamie Carthan Till-Mobley. His father Louis Till was killed in Italy in 1945 at the age of 23. One day Emmett had been invited to go down to Money, Mississippi where he would visit some of his relatives. He had never been to Mississippi, and this meant his mother tried to warn Emmett of the dangers of being a coloured boy down there. Emmett’s mother was especially worried because of Emmett’s characteristics being very outgoing and friendly. Emmett arrived in Mississippi on August 21, 1955. After a few days had gone by Emmett and some of his new friends had gone for a walk around town. It was a hot day so they decided to go into a corner store to buy some refreshments. All had been fine purchasing the refreshments, however as they were walking out of the store Emmett allegedly whistled at the woman behind the counter. The boys quickly ran off to make sure they wouldn’t be hunted down. A few days later the boys had all but forgotten about the incident of August 24th, when two men came knocking on their door. These men were Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. Roy was the husband of the woman in the store and J.W. was his brother. They had been outraged by the actions of Emmett and decided that they should take the punishment into their own hands. They forced Emmett into their car and drove off, they stopped driving when they got up to Memphis and they beat Emmett as gruesomely as possible. After putting this beat down on the kid they decided rather than return him home they would kill him. They drove off again to the Tallahatchie River, and dumped his body. They tied him down with barbed wire and cinder blocks to make sure he would drown. Emmett’s body was found and identified three days later. Emmett had been so badly beaten that the only identifier that it was him was the ring he wore on his finger inscribed with his initials. The ring had been given to him by his father before he had died, and meant the world to Emmett. When it was first given to him, Emmett had tried it on everyday until it would finally fit him. Now as a fourteen year old boy it had been the only identifier for his dead body.

The death of Emmett Till, was nothing new to the coloured people down south. They had seen this type of thing before. However what was different about Emmett Till was that, he was a boy from Chicago, and his mother decided that he should have an open casket. Meaning everyone everywhere around the world could see how brutally he was murdered. This sparked a “revolution” amongst the coloured Americans and was a big piece in the Civil Rights Movement.

About Colin Kaepernick’s Protest

Colin Kaepernick is an American political activist and a former NFL Quarterback. He played in the NFL from 2011-2016, and had played in a Super Bowl and multiple Conference Championships. He played for the San Francisco 49ers before opting out of his contract after the 2016 season. He hasn’t been signed by any NFL team since, and here’s why;

At the start of the 2016 NFL season Colin Kaepernick started to use his platform as a way to raise awareness of the “Black Lives Matter” campaign. It all started in the third week of the preseason where he sat during the national anthem rather then standing like everyone else in the entire venue. Not much had come from this as not many people had really noticed it and it was only a preseason game. It only became a big deal when he started kneeling during the national anthem in the opening week of the season and continued to do so for the entirety of the year. His stance outraged many people around the United States, calling him “unpatriotic” or “un-American” but Kaepernick didn’t care. Even the president of the United States had something to say about it “I watched Colin Kaepernick, and I thought it was terrible, and then it got bigger and bigger and started mushrooming, and frankly the NFL should have suspended him for one game, and he would have never done it again,” Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in an interview on October 11, 2017 before an audience in Harrisburg, Pa. “They could have then suspended him for two games, and they could have suspended him if he did it a third time, for the season, and you would never have had a problem. But I will tell you, you cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem — you cannot do that.”

Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images

Many owners around the NFL were also disgusted by Kaepernick’s acts and wanted him out of his job. On May 24, 2018 the NFL and its owners unanimously passed a new policy in the NFL that stated “The policy subjects teams to a fine if a player or any other team personnel do not show respect for the anthem. That includes any attempt to sit or kneel, as dozens of players have done during the past two seasons to protest racial inequality and police brutality. Those teams also will have the option to fine any team personnel, including players, for the infraction.”

Ever since the start of Kaepernick’s stance (or kneel) he has gained many followers and supporters around the NFL. Having 70% of the players in the NFL being African American, it is no surprise that many joined Kaepernick in his protest. Many players (of all races) started to take a knee alongside Kaepernick, some entire teams participated together while locking arms. The other stat that may come as no surprise to many is that 100% of the owners in the NFL are white. Meaning that the people who had all the power to decide what to do with the players who were kneeling were all white.

References

Calfas, Jennifer. “Here’s How Much Colin Kaepernick Will Make in His Controversial New Ad Deal With Nike, According to Sports Experts.” MONEY.com, Money, 4 Sept. 2018, money.com/money/5386086/colin-kaepernick-nike-deal/.

Lang, Cady. “Your Guide to the 2019 Super Bowl Halftime Show Controversy.” Time, Time, 18 Jan. 2019, time.com/5505825/super-bowl-halftime-show-controversy-2019/.

Sonnad, Nikhil. “The NFL’s Racial Divide, in One Chart.” Quartz, Quartz, 28 May 2018, qz.com/1287915/the-nfls-racial-makeup-explains-much-of-its-national-anthem-problems/.

Kwong, Matt. “Nike Took a Hit after Releasing the Colin Kaepernick Ad. In the Trump Era, That Might Be Part of the Plan | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 5 Sept. 2018, www.cbc.ca/news/business/colin-kaepernick-nike-boycott-1.4810655.

Seifert, Kevin, and Dan Graziano. “New Policy Requires on-Field Players, Personnel to Stand for Anthem.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 24 May 2018, www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/23582533/nfl-owners-approve-new-national-anthem-policy.

Wilson, Ryan. “Donald Trump: NFL Should Have Suspended Colin Kaepernick for Kneeling.” CBSSports.com, CBS Sports, 12 Oct. 2017, www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/donald-trump-nfl-should-have-suspended-colin-kaepernick-for-kneeling/.

“Emmett Till Is Murdered.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till.

“Emmett Till.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 24 Jan. 2019, www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515.