(dramatic theme music) - The National Football League has kicked off its 100th season with a lot of fanfare.

Memories of great catches, wild finishes, and a lifetime of entertainment for many Americans.

But the sport has a more recent legacy and one the League may not be as quick to talk about.

Beginning with Colin Kaepernick, some NFL players chose to kneel during the national anthem.

They knelt in protest of police shootings of African-Americans and they were immediately criticized for suddenly bringing politics into the sports arena.

- But sports has always been a reflection of where we are as a country.

And Kaepernick's take-a-knee movement was a direct result of previous protests by black athletes.

He was not only inspired by the two sprinters who raised their fists at the Olympics in 1968, but he was even advised by the very same person.

(fanfare) - [Announcer] Track fans gather for the 220-yard dash.

- I was a singer at San Jose State when Thomas Smith came in as a freshman.

He was the greatest sprinter that I've ever seen.

- [Announcer] Smith begins to pour it on.

He literally flies toward the tape.

- [Narrator] Harry Edwards first met Tommie Smith as his classmate in the 1960s, but a couple of years later, Edwards got a job at San Jose State and became Smith's teacher.

- And in those courses, I talked about, here's where sport intersects with education, here's where it intersects with religion, here's where it intersects with politics.

- The athletes of the 1960s are much different than the generation that preceded them.

You saw things like the Lew Alcindor becoming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

You know, Muhammad Ali refusing to go to Vietnam.

- The real enemies of my people are right here, not in Vietnam.

(fanfare) - [Narrator] As the 1968 Summer Olympics approached, Edwards, Smith, and fellow sprinter John Carlos became determined to bring the plight of black America to the international arena.

- [Announcer] The men's 200-meters, another event dominated by the black American sprinters.

- Up until then, the prevailing notion was that black concerns or civil rights stops at the water's edge.

We don't air our dirty laundry before the world.

Our churches were being bombed, our little girls being killed, our leaders being shot down, while they had black athletes going abroad as goodwill ambassadors to sell the American system.

- People forget that those Olympics happened just a few months after Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

- [News Presenter] All over America, black ghettos exploded in rage and grief.

- We want to send the message that we are determined to fight this struggle.

(gun fires) (crowd cheering) We may not be able to get to the forum in the United Nations, but we can get to the Olympic podium.

(crowd cheering) (ominous music) - [News Presenter] It was widely interpreted as a provocative black power gesture.

And in retaliation, Smith and Carlos were thrown off the team and told to get out two days later.

- [Narrator] The image of Smith and Carlos raising their fists during the national anthem sparked immediately public backlash.

- [Harry] There was a tremendous reaction.

The death threats came rolling in.

I was fired from my teaching position at San Jose State.

- Do you think you represented all black athletes in doing this?

- I can say I represented black America.

- It wasn't simply a reflection of black militancy.

It was pointing to the duality of being asked to perform on the world stage as good, loyal Americans and a society that had blood on its hands for the assassination of the foremost articulator of African-American claims to democracy and freedom.

- You'll never see me stand up and tell this thing and ask that it be able to represent me.

- [Audience Member] Right on.

- Nah, it doesn't represent me.

(audience applauding) - And so in a way, that's a kind of distillation of the position that African-American athletes had been in from the very beginning.

- Jackie Robinson told me that he didn't stand for the national anthem anymore.

He didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance.

He understood that even after the price that he paid in turning the other cheek, keeping quiet, which was not in his character, very little progress had been made.

- I think they've gotta do whatever they possibly can, but we cannot exclude any means except violence.

- He was the first one to make it clear to me that progress is a very, very tricky kind of a concept.

At one level, it's a lot like profit.

It comes down to who's keeping the books.

- [Ad Narrator] Ever need to rent a car fast?

♪ Nobody does it better ♪ ♪ Hertz leads the others by far ♪ (disco music) - [Narrator] By the late 1970s, the rise of celebrity culture and an influx of endorsement money ushered in a new generation of black athletes whose profitability and wide appeal was contingent on avoiding politics.

- OJ Simpson, he stated everybody can't be Martin Luther King, and he was not wrong.

If Larry Bird doesn't have to stand up for every hick in French Lick, Indiana or every poor white guy or woman in Appalachia, why should OJ have to be representative of every black person who's struggling under racism in this society?

Are we really talking about exchanging black orthodoxy for white supremacy?

- Yo, Mike, what makes you the best player in the universe?

Money's gotta be the shoes!

Shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes.

You sure it's not the shoes?

- I'm sure, Mars.

- What about the shoes?

- Michael Jordan's arrival as the most identifiable American on the planet possibly, it's not coincidental he achieved that level of global stardom as being among the least political, least outspoken African-American athletes in that tradition.

- It became possible for somebody like Charles Barkley to say... - I am not a role model.

- That actually became part of a commercial.

Don't expect me to do anything or be anything for your child.

I'm just here to dine sumptuously at a table where somebody else's sacrifices and struggles made it possible for me to do so.

- In 1990, when Harvey Gantt ran against noted segregationist Jesse Helms in North Carolina, Jordan refused to weigh in and refused to endorse Gantt.

♪ If I could be like you, Mike ♪ ♪ Oh, be like Mike ♪ - The dictates of the market were more important than the dictates of civil rights, at least in his own personal calculations.

That really became the mold for a generation of African-American athletes.

- Game ball!

(crowd cheering) - [Narrator] In 1985, Harry Edwards got a call from Superbowl champion coach Bill Walsh, who was also a San Jose State alumnus.

Walsh knew of Edward's history of social activism.

And thinking outside the box, he felt Edwards could be a valuable asset to his team.

- He said, where I want you more than anywhere else is in the locker room.

We have a demographic transition coming where you have a majority blacks on the field.

I want these athletes to be aware and conscious of what's going on not just in football but beyond, so that we can be ahead of things when they develop.

- [Narrator] Over the last three decades, Edwards has been a sounding board for 49ers players grappling with the intersection of sports and society, including a dynamic young quarterback named Colin Kaepernick who led the team to the 2013 Superbowl.

- Colin Kaepernick asked me for books to read.

I said yeah, I can give you some books to read.

He was just another athlete who would come to me and say, Doc, there's something I wanna talk to you about.

- This country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all, and it's not happening for all right now.

- Colin Kaepernick says he is ready for the backlash after refusing to stand during the national anthem.

- [News Presenter] Sports and politics collided when Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem, he says, to highlight black oppression.

- I think that what's happened now with the current generation of athletes is that we've been inundated with video of people being killed by the police under, at best, questionable circumstances, and we've seen it again and again and again and again.

- Put your hand behind your back!

- I can't breathe, I can't breathe.

I can't breathe, I can't breathe.

- [News Presenter] We now know that Tamir Rice was killed by one shot to the left-side of his abdomen.

- Hey bro, (beep), you move, I swear to God!

(gunshots) - There's always been pressure, particularly from African-American communities saying that people who had a platform to speak out on behalf of those communities.

- Between about 1974 and about 2008, there was no ideology framing of the era.

There was no movement.

At the end of the day, it's inevitable that these waves will come along.

Why?

Because it is embedded in the very cultural and historical fiber of American society.

- You cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem.

You cannot do that.

- There's a political calculation and there's a political profit to be reaped, whether it is the deliberate or unintentional misinterpretation of this dissent to be anti-American.

- To say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now.

Out, he's fired.

(crowd cheering) He's fired!

- I hate you!

- American made!

- American made!

- [News Presenter] Furious football fans are posting videos online, burning all things Kaepernick.

- Whenever we've seen figures articulate a critique of the society, especially African-American athletes, dissent is interpreted as disloyalty.

- So let's be clear, that's what they are.

They're arrogant, young millionaires.

- There's a presumption that black people are not supposed up a tier of society where they are and they should be grateful that they've been allowed to exist on that tier.

- [News Presenter] During a meeting between players and owners last week, Bob McNair said if the League didn't stop the protests, it would be like "inmates running the prison."

- The audience do not reflect the 80% blacks on the field.

I mean, I'm watching a couple of teams this past Sunday, it looked like Ghana playing Nigeria.

And it's gonna get blacker owing to the concussion issue because whites are dropping out.

This is a growing contradiction.

This is not gonna get better.

It's gonna become more strained.

And this sophistry about, well, it's the national anthem, doesn't help to move the conversation forward.

- The NFL has agreed to commit $89 million over the next seven years to social justice causes considered important to the African-American community.

- [News Presenter] Kaepernick remains unsigned, leaving some to suggest that he's being blackballed for his controversial protest.

- [Narrator] In October 2017, Kaepernick accused NFL team owners of colluding to keep him out of the League, a case that was later settled.

But in the midst of it, sportswear giant Nike revealed he would be the face of a new advertising campaign.

- [News Presenter] The face of controversy now part of a global campaign.

- [Narrator] While some on social media declared a boycott of the company, others saw it as a sign of progress since 1968, that a major corporation viewed Kaepernick's fight as not only acceptable, but marketable.

- For the people who take these stands, they often entail some significant degree of personal sacrifice.

But I think it's the thing that people do out of a sense of a broader humanity.