Colin Kaepernick Sports Fidel Castro and Malcolm X T-Shirt

NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick swapped his San Francisco 49ers gear for a T-shirt featuring revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Malcolm X during a press conference Monday, following his refusal to stand for the U.S. national anthem Friday.

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Kaepernick’s shirt featured a number of images of Black power leader Malcolm X and Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, with the caption, “Like Minds Think Alike.” He also wore a black hat with a large white X, presumably in another reference to Malcolm X.

The meeting of the two revolutionaries took place in September 1960, when Fidel Castro visited New York for the first time after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 for a U.N. General Assembly meeting.

After a racist, reactionary international media campaign against the anti-imperialist government, the Hotel Shelburne in Downtown Manhattan considered the Cubans personas non grata.

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Castro threatened to sleep in Central Park rather than subject his Cuban delegation to such abuse. Harlem activists and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee quickly sprang into action and helped arrange the Cuban delegation’s relocation to the historic Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where Malcolm X greeted the revolutionary in a meeting that solidified the ties between the struggle of Black people in the U.S. and the Cuban Revolution.

Obviously, Kaepernick knows revolutionary history.

Kaepernick has stated that he is prepared to continue to sit out the national anthem even if it damages his career or threatens his physical well-being, garnering support from sports greats like basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"I'm going to speak the truth when I'm asked about it. This isn't for looks. This isn't for publicity or anything like that. This is for people that don't have the voice. And this is for people that are being oppressed and need to have equal opportunities to be successful,” Kaepernick told to reporters Monday.