HYGO News National Anthem Protests and Race
National Anthem Protests and Race
In September 2017, the national anthem protests that had begun with Colin Kaepernick the previous year escalated into a full-blown political confrontation after President Trump weighed in at a rally in Alabama. The fallout reached Congress, cable news, and international audiences. This video captures the sharply opposing reactions from Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Hillary Clinton, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Sheila Jackson Lee Takes a Knee on the House Floor
Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas brought the protest from NFL stadiums directly onto the House floor. In a dramatic statement captured in the video, she delivered a series of declarations while kneeling: “That is racism and I kneel in honor of them. I kneel in front of the flag and on this floor. I kneel in honor of the First Amendment. I kneel because the flag is a symbol for freedom. I kneel because I’m going to stand against racism. I kneel because I will stand with those young men and I’ll stand with our soldiers and I’ll stand with America because I kneel.”
The moment drew an immediate procedural response. The presiding officer reminded the chamber: “Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president and to direct the remarks to the chair.” Jackson Lee’s demonstration was significant because it moved the protest from the realm of sports into the halls of Congress, elevating it from a cultural argument to an explicitly political one.
As the video description noted, both Congresswoman Jackson Lee and Hillary Clinton “accused Trump of racism” over his response to the kneeling players.
Hillary Clinton’s Response
Hillary Clinton also weighed in on the controversy, framing Trump’s criticism of kneeling NFL players as racially motivated. As captured in the video, she argued: “He attacks black athletes as he did, starting with his rally in Alabama, continued on Twitter. And he attacks them for protesting peacefully for equality, for standing up for what they believe.”
Clinton pushed the argument further: “And he does it once again to dog whistle to his base and to try to detract attention from other things that are going on. But it’s quite telling that he is willing to attack black athletes.” Her framing positioned the anthem controversy not as a debate about patriotism or respect for the flag, but as a deliberate racial provocation by the president.
The timing of Clinton’s remarks was noteworthy. Nearly a year after losing the 2016 election, she remained one of the most prominent Democratic voices, and her willingness to directly accuse the sitting president of racism ensured the story would dominate multiple news cycles.
Newt Gingrich Fires Back
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich provided the sharpest counterpoint in the video. He accused Clinton of weaponizing race for political advantage: “She is using racism as a deliberate weapon. She is dividing the country on racial grounds as a deliberate political weapon in exactly the model of modern liberalism which can’t possibly survive if they don’t constantly go back to racism.”
Gingrich rejected the premise that Trump’s comments about the anthem protests had anything to do with race: “Donald Trump said nothing that had anything to do about race. He talked about defending the flag. How you take that and translate it into a racial attack tells you everything you need to know about the sickness of the modern left and the sickness of the Democratic Party.”
He concluded with what became one of the most quoted lines from the exchange, as highlighted in the video description: “They cannot survive if they can’t constantly yell race. And as a result, they have become one of the most divisive and destructive forces in America today.”
Additional Context from Full Remarks
The anthem protests of September 2017 represented a significant escalation from the previous year. When Kaepernick first knelt during the 2016 preseason, the protest was largely confined to one player on one team. By the time Trump called on NFL owners to fire players who knelt — using an expletive at his Alabama rally — the protests had spread across the league. That Sunday, more than 200 NFL players knelt, sat, or raised fists during the anthem, while some entire teams stayed in the locker room.
The debate split the country along familiar lines. Supporters of the protests argued that peaceful demonstration was a constitutional right and that the players were drawing attention to real issues of racial injustice in policing. Critics argued that kneeling during the national anthem was disrespectful to the flag, the military, and the country. Trump’s entry into the debate hardened both positions and made it nearly impossible to discuss the protests without taking a side in the broader political war.
The video captures a moment when the argument was at its most heated, with elected officials on both sides treating the anthem protests as a proxy for deeper questions about race, patriotism, and political strategy in America.
Key Takeaways
- Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee brought the NFL anthem protest to Congress by kneeling on the House floor, declaring she was standing “against racism” and in support of the First Amendment and the flag simultaneously.
- Hillary Clinton accused Trump of racially motivated attacks on Black athletes, calling his comments a “dog whistle,” while Newt Gingrich countered that Clinton and Democrats were using racism “as a deliberate political weapon” that could not survive without constant racial division.
- The September 2017 anthem protests represented a dramatic escalation from Kaepernick’s solo demonstration, with over 200 NFL players participating after Trump’s Alabama rally comments turned the issue into a national political confrontation.