Rusty Weiss
Colin Kaepernick will release his long-awaited memoir, The Perilous Fight, on September 15, 2026 — almost exactly 10 years after he first took a knee during the national anthem.
Kaepernick began protesting what he felt was a scourge of racial injustice and police brutality as a member of the San Francisco 49ers.
The book, published by Legacy Lit, is being described as “equal parts memoir and manifesto.”
“On September 1, 2016, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, but the world has never fully understood the whole story,” a description from the publisher reads. “Not the ‘why.’ Not what it cost. Not what it took to become the man who was ready for that moment.”
They note that Kaepernick views the NFL as “a mirror of American capitalism, of racial exploitation, of a country that celebrated black entertainment and criminalized black lives in the same breath.”
The memoir will be available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook formats, with Kaepernick narrating the Audible-exclusive audio version himself.
A decade after he first took a knee during the national anthem, Colin Kaepernick will be publishing his life story. https://t.co/ajXJHBXjP0
— ABC News (@ABC) April 7, 2026
Colin Kaepernick to Release The Perilous Fight Memoir on 10-Year Anniversary of National Anthem Protest
In the announcement, Kaepernick reflected on the personal journey that led to his protest.
“People saw the moment. But they didn’t see the years that made it possible: the questions about who I was; the injustices I could no longer ignore; the voices of those who came before me that I carried into that stadium,” he writes on his website.
“That journey, from a black kid navigating an identity the world didn’t always make space for, to an athlete who realized the game was bigger than football, shaped everything.”
The details, of course, can be debated. Kaepernick appears to live in an alternate reality about how the league initially treated him. He opted to leave his team, then spent years accusing the league of blacklisting him.
Kaepernick, known for leading the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance in 2013, has faced challenges returning to the NFL, partly due to his kneeling protests. In his mind, anyway. That’s not what really happened.
The now-38-year-old former quarterback opted out of his contract with the Niners following the 2016 season to pursue a career in activism. He has not been in the league since losing to the Seattle Seahawks on January 1st, 2017, capping off a brutal 2-14 season for the team.
While Kaepernick likes to suggest he was “held out” of the league, he actually began the 2016 season on the bench, had already been protesting the anthem in pre-season games that year, and was then named a starter again in week 6.
The 49ers were 1-10 in games in which he started. That included a game against the Bears in Week 13, in which he threw a career-low 4 yards and was sacked 5 times before being benched again. They went back to him as a starter twice that season despite the protests, and he still opted out of his contract. That is far from being ‘held out’.
In an interview with NPR, Kaepernick said he “will forever miss” football and “continue to train for” a return to the NFL.
The new book traces his upbringing as a black child adopted into a white family in Turlock, California, his path through sports, and the broader fight for justice and equity that followed his protest of the anthem.
