Colin Kaepernick wins Amnesty International's highest honor

The organization recognized Kaepernick for his protest against police violence: his action, kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games, sparked a movement replicated across America and the world, starting a debate about free speech and patriotism that was inflamed by the President of the United States, one of Kaepernick’s most relentless critics.

“When high-profile people choose to take a stand for human rights, it emboldens others,” says Augusta Quiney, Amnesty International’s director of Art for Amnesty, a program that works with artists and entertainers on human rights activism. “For us, this is an opportunity to be on the right side of history.”