I would say that the purpose for us understanding our own history is that we must be able to

teach our children to dream with their eyes open.

That means understanding the historic figures who brought us thus far and that includes and perhaps

especially includes our athletes because they played such a great role.

The Bronze Games tweeted a teen photo of Miami Heat wearing hoodies to pay tribute to better

that protest by Colin Kaepernick, 40 that has scored back Nelt instead of standing during the national anthem at last night's game.

It's the rare things that have been sports and politics collide and an innocent, you're listening to Threw Life from NPR.

Where we go back in time to understand the present.

Hey, I'm Ramti Narablui.

I'm Ram Dabdifattah.

And today we're going to talk about the history of black protests in sports.

Run, we're both sports fans.

Yeah, by double.

Little bit.

And we've been talking a lot lately about how so many black athletes are using their platforms to speak out about things like police brutality or racial profiling.

And a lot of this coverage tends to start the backstory in the 1960s with Muhammad Ali or the raised fists at the 1968 Olympics.

So we decided to look for other stories, the ones we don't always hear about.

We found examples of athletes who challenged the status quo of their time.

And it's their rebellion that really surprised us, even in cases where they may not have considered themselves activists.

And learning more about their stories, a much more complex tale of activism emerged.

So we're going to tell three of those stories, starting with a champion boxer from the early 20th century.

Then moved to an Olympic track star from the 1960s.

...