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Eric Burin, ed., Protesting on Bended Knee: Race, Dissent, and Patriotism in 21st Century America.

Protesting on Bended Knee  is a “really impressive work and certainly the best thing I have seen on the entire affair anywhere. I hope it gets wide circulation. It deals in all the complexities and nuance that one needs.”

 

Richard C. Crepeau, author of NFL Football: A History of America’s New National Pastime (2014)

Protesting on Bended Knee eyes the modern crusade for racial equality through the prism of the demonstrations associated with Colin Kaepernick, a professional football player who in 2016 began kneeling during the national anthem to draw attention to discrimination and injustice. A diverse array of thirty-one authors explain in brief essays what they see in the protests; collectively, they describe where the demonstrations fit within Americans’ quest to form “a more perfect union”; the legal landscape of dissent; the revival of athlete-activists; the tactics of protesters and counter-tactics of their opponents; and the perspective of others—reporters, coaches, players, and fans—“in the arena.” Their observations, along with an extensive Introduction by historian Eric Burin, provide a nearly contemporaneous account of the latest chapter in a freedom struggle as old as America itself.

For more on this book, go here.