Citadel Kaepernick and the Neg Marron | Page 14

The call for protest and rebellion against the French slave owners, which subsequently ended the French tyranny, challenged the status quo and Haiti became the first iconic symbol of successful black protest and revolution. Nonetheless, this great feat by the Haitian slaves was not welcomed and accepted by most whites at the time, mainly the US government and its president Thomas Jefferson- an ambivalent slave owner himself. Jefferson realized that the Haitian Revolution had the potential to cause an upheaval against slavery in the US not only by the slaves themselves but by white abolitionists as well. Southern slaveholders feared that the revolt might spread from the island of Hispaniola to the slave plantations of the Southern United States (which it briefly did in 1831 with the rebellion by Nat Turner that was inspired by the Haitian Revolution). The primary goal of the US was to maintain social order in the country, so the United States suppressed the Haitian Revolution.

One of the main arguments or suspicions of the NFL´s blackballing of Kaepernick's protest is that it may cause more players to start protesting and could incite the Black Lives Matter movement which Colin Kaepernick is believed to be actively part of. According to John Mora, “I think there are certain issues obviously that go along with Colin Kaepernick (probably referring to BLM movement) and that may have scared some teams (owners) away…”

History Of Silencing The Black Voice

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