Colin Kaepernick on the Books that Changed his Life

Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick sparked a national conversation about police brutality against Black and Brown people when he took a knee during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” His memoir, The Perilous Fight, is out this week from Legacy Lit. Below is an excerpt about the books that changed his life and helped inspire him to speak out about injustice. (Photo credit: Amari Kenoly.) On one trip, she gave me a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I’d let it slip that I had never read it, and she was adamant that I’d be forever changed once I did. Nessa had grown up in a very pro-Black household. Her parents had exposed her to figures like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, telling her that they were amazing people who had changed the world. That’s how I’d viewed Allen Iverson and Randy Moss growing up. They’d changed my world and opened a window into my own Blackness. Ali and Malcolm were men who sacrificed everything for their beliefs. They were men of uncompromising integrity who deeply loved their people. “I just feel that you would love the story of Malcolm X and his evolution because I can see that you are evolving,” Nessa said. “I see how the sports world is treating you, and it...