Tag: National Museum of African American History and Culture

ESPN anchor and UCLA alumna Cari Champion, left, and the panelists agreed that sports and politics have never been separate. The one-hour discussion about athletes and activism was part of a series of events recognizing the 100th birthday of Jackie Robinson, the UCLA alumnus who broke the Major League Baseball color barrier in 1947. The panelists were Pat Turner, vice provost of UCLA undergraduate education and professor of African American studies; Chris Kluwe, a former punter for UCLA and the Minnesota Vikings and now a writer and LGBT equality activist; Damion Thomas, museum curator of sports for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture who earned a doctorate in history from UCLA; and Kaiya McCullough, a current UCLA women’s soccer player. “And it’s hard to not feel sadness for people who are going through things that you couldn’t possibly imagine. “I am very privileged just because of the fact I am white,” Kluwe said. He noted that when James Naismith invented basketball in 1919, it was to help the YMCA — founded as the Young Men’s Christian Association — instill moral and character education at a time when church attendance was declining. Basketball [became] a vehicle to teach young men and boys, at that point, Christian values.” Champion pointedly asked the panel what might have happened if Kaepernick had said he was kneeling to support breast cancer research, rather than to bring attention to racial injustice. “I can think of other things you can do that are genuinely disrespectful,” she said. “But quietly getting on a knee, not vocalizing anything — that’s interpreted as disrespectful?” Toward the end of the discussion, Thomas reminded the audience of Jackie Robinson’s legacy — and the toll that his activism took on him. “Jackie Robinson always said, ‘Well, we still haven’t done enough,’” Thomas said.