Photo: Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
Colin Kaepernick has received Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award, the human rights organization's highest honor. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback was presented with the award on Saturday, April 21 by his former team-mate Eric Reid, who has knelt alongside him, Amnesty announced.
Kaepernick first knelt during the US national anthem in the 2016 NFL pre-season, in protest at the disproportionate number of black people being killed by police. The gesture sparked a movement across American sport and beyond, and he has been without a team since March 2017. Accepting the award, he said:
This is an award that I share with all of the countless people throughout the world combating the human rights violations of police officers, and their uses of oppressive and excessive force.
Through the Colin Kaepernick Foundation he funds free “Know Your Rights” camps for young people. He now joins previous winners including Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Alicia Keys and Ai Weiwei.
Kaepernick is also one of the NFL's best known vegans. He confirmed to reporters in August 2016 that he had gone vegan nine months earlier, and promptly faced claims that the diet was costing him muscle, which he rejected, as ProFootballTalk reported at the time. Last year some teams were even said to be worried about his vegan diet, a bizarre excuse given that theScore found “no evidence the dietary choice negatively affected his level of play in the slightest.” His stand on human rights sits alongside a diet that leaves animals off the plate too.
Kaepernick isn't the only American athlete putting plants front and center. Nike recently promoted a vegan diet in an advert with NBA star Kyrie Irving, the only male US weightlifter at the Rio Olympics was vegan, and wrestler Austin Aries has just completed the Impact Grand Slam on a plant-based diet.
Congratulations Colin. Standing up for what's right, powered by plants.