Football players at all-Black Maryland school kneel in the name of equality

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The legacy of Colin Kaepernick is that he has forced topics of inequality and police brutality to the forefront of the American conversation. Nowhere is that more clear than at Capital Christian Academy, an all-black private school in Prince George’s County, Md., where football players are still taking a knee.

The team first broached the idea of taking a knee with new coach, Cornell Wade, in late August, according to NBC News. The first game of the season was a few days away.

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“I hope you all know why,” Wade told his players, according to NBC News. Although Wade wasn’t opposed, he wanted to ensure they had thought things through, were making the choice for the right reasons and realized the ramifications of such a move.

Josiah Gill, 17, spoke for the team when he said they understood. “We’re taking a knee because of inequality as a whole,” Gill said, according to the NBC News article. “We’re aware of what’s going on in this country as young black males.”

Kneeling during the National Anthem was a movement started with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling in 2016 to highlight racial injustice and police bias. Although the number of professional football players still kneeling has dwindled, due to threat of penalty by team owners, some high schools around the country, like Capital Christian Academy, are still protesting the issues.

Last year, for example, two black football players knelt at a private Christian school outside of Houston, and they were kicked off the team by their white coach. When members of a mostly black high school football team in Louisiana knelt before a game against a mostly white school, they were met with jeers and racial slurs. And in New Jersey, two referees at a high school football game walked off the field after players knelt, later saying they didn’t like “anyone disrespecting our country, our flag, the armed forces,” according to NBC News.

Some schools have flat out even banned these protests.

But at Capital Christian Academy, which was established in 2013 as an African-American-operated prep school, Gill and other players are still kneeling.

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