*Former NFL quarterback turned activist Colin Kaepernick was awarded the prestigious W.E.B Dubois Medal by Harvard University, along with Dave Chappelle and several other activists and academics of color, for their contributions to black history and culture.
All eight recipients were honored Thursday afternoon by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard, CBS Baltimore reports.
“The one, the only, the magnificent, the marvelous, the love warrior of his generation in sports, Colin,” said Cornell West as he introduced Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and social injustice.
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Last night at Sanders Theatre, Colin Kaepernick, Dave Chappelle, Pamela J. Joyner, Bryan Stevenson, Shirley Ann Jackson, Florence C. Ladd, Kenneth I. Chenault, and Kehinde Wiley were honored with the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal https://t.co/xzFe4aBf2v pic.twitter.com/Lrc7wMrCNm
— Harvard University (@Harvard) October 12, 2018
Kaepernick told the audience at the ceremony, “Love is at the root of our resistance, and it will continue to be, and it will fortify everything that we do.”
According to the report, the media was not allowed to record Kap’s speech because of his ongoing lawsuit with the NFL.
He also tied in his recent “Just Do It” campaign with Nike – featuring the slogan, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.”
In his remarks Thursday, Colin told the crowd, “If we all believe in something, we won’t have to sacrifice everything.”
The other recipients of the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal were: Kenneth Chenault, chairman and a managing director of General Catalyst; Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Pamela Joyner, founder of Avid Partners, LLC; psychologist and author Florence Ladd; Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative; and artist Kehinde Wiley.
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