‘Dozens’ Protest Outside NFL Headquarters Over Players’ ‘Right To Kneel’

A planned protest in front of the National Football League’s headquarters appeared to fizzle out late Friday after only a few dozen demonstrators showed up to agitate for professional football players’ “right to kneel.”

According to Fox News, the protest was organized by the “NAACP, the Justice League of New York City, the National Action Network and the Women’s March” in response to a set of NFL rules released last week barring players from kneeling on the field during the national anthem.

“Protesters carried signs and chanted as they defended athletes’ ‘right to kneel,'” Fox News reported. “Some people wore clothing or jerseys featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began the trend of not standing for the anthem during the 2016 NFL season to protest racial injustice and police brutality.”

Protestors taking a knee outside of the @NFL ~ @NationalAction @womensmarch @NAACP @KirstenJohnFoy @TamikaDMallory @JumaaneWilliams, Mark Thompson, @IamRevKev pic.twitter.com/Pq7KWCpdBa

— Rachel Noerdlinger (@rachelnoerd) May 25, 2018

Last week, the NFL determined that during the 2018-2019 season, if players want to protest during the national anthem, they must remain in the locker room. Teams will be penalized and possibly fined for players who kneel on the field during the “Star Spangled Banner.”

The policy likely came too little too late to recover the NFL’s lost audience, and potentially threw fuel on the fire of a protest that had mostly fizzled out by the end of last season.

Activists, like those that protested late Friday, now say they plan to re-ignite the issue.