Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick may not ever play in the NFL again, as many believe he is being blacklisted by the league for his stance against police brutality. This reality, however, has not stopped Kaepernick’s ongoing activism around social justice. According to TMZ, the 33-year-old will release a book of essays advocating the abolition of police and prisons.
The book, entitled Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons, is set for release on October 12 with over 30 essays. Kaepernick is credited as the book’s editor and will author one of the 30-plus essays.
Kaepernick formed his publishing company in 2019 as part of an outgrowth of his social justice work that started when his peaceful anthem protests became controversial.
Kaepernick took the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013 in a losing effort, but played good enough to be the MVP had his team’s defense held the lead against their opponent, the Baltimore Ravens. Yet, the QB was booted from the league for his activist stance and eventually settled a collusion case against the NFL in 2019, which alleged that NFL teams agreed to keep him from resigning to the league.
Though unable, or not allowed, to find work in his field on the gridiron, Kepernick has stayed plenty busy. Since the settlement with the NFL, Kaepernick has sponsored the Know Your Rights Camp, which has provided empowerment training to kids in several cities and made good on his pledge to donate a million dollars of his own money to various social justice organizations. He says he hopes the book will expand the conversation around preventing police violence against Blacks and people of color.
“This anthology builds on decades of organizing and writing against policing & prisons & features the work of over 30 contributors plus a reader’s guide, infographics, & cover art by Emory Douglas,” Kaepernick tweeted on Tuesday.
Douglas is the artist who created the iconic covers for The Black Panther newspaper of the 1960s and 1970s.
Kaepernick concluded, “I’m proud to have edited this collection & hope it adds to the chorus of voices calling for a world without & beyond policing & prisons.”
As he noted, Kaepernick is not the first celebrated individual to call for prison and police abolition. The movement has been growing for decades as the United States, which is only 4.25% of the world’s population, incarcerates over 2 million people, mostly of color, who are 24.7% of the world’s prison population.
In 2003, activist and scholar Angela Davis released a book “Are Prisons Obsolete?” which called for the abolition of the prison-industrial complex.
-theGrio