Former 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick might not have played in Sunday night’s Super Bowl, but he did celebrate the pinnacle of the National Football League’s season by raising money for a group named after convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur.
The Washington Times reports that as part of his post-football career Kaepernick has been raising money for a variety of progressive causes through a program called Million Dollar Pledge. Some of the groups are innocuous, such as pro-education organizations and campaigns to help get kids off the street after school, but at least one, Assata’s Daughters, has more concerning roots.
Assata’s Daugthers bills itself as a “direct action” group that “carries on the tradition of radical liberatory activism encompassed by Assata Shakur.” But Shakur herself was a member of the Black Liberation Army and in 1977 was convicted of killing a New Jersey State Trooper in a highway shootout. She escaped prison and fled to Cuba, where she remains, evading authorities .
She is one of the FBI’s most wanted.
Kaepernick gave $25,000 of his own money to Assata’s Daughters before bundling an additional $20,000 from celebrity friends who are anxious to signal their support for the out-of-work football player and his crusade to bring social justice to the NFL.
For all the attention Kaepernick’s protest commanded early in the season, protests were noticeably absent at Sunday night’s Super Bowl. The only mention of Kaepernick came from rap star Cardi B, who announced she would not perform in the halftime show if Kaepernick was not given a place in the league. There’s no indication from the NFL that she was even invited.