Colin Kaepernick was never able to achieve his goal of returning to the NFL following his national anthem protests, but the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback is going to leave it all on the field in a new book that is “equal parts memoir and manifesto.”
On Tuesday, Kaepernick announced plans to publish “The Perilous Fight,” a new memoir, through publisher Legacy Lit, on September 15, 2026. The audiobook, also narrated by Kaepernick, will be available on Audible.
The release date coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the first time the former quarterback took a knee during the playing of the national anthem before NFL games. The 49ers QB was doing so as a protest against racial injustice, police brutality, and oppression in the United States, and the reaction polarized his fellow players, the NFL, and the country, especially after President Donald Trump said that NFL owners should “fire” players who protest during the national anthem.
The book will trace Kaepernick’s story from his childhood in Turlock, California, where he grew up as a Black kid adopted into a white family, and how sports became a refuge.
“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,” Kaepernick, 38, wrote in the book announcement. “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. When I took a knee, it wasn’t a sudden act. It was the result of years of becoming. And what came after taught me the most important truth: this fight has never belonged to one person. It belongs to all of us. We fight for each other. We build with each other. We must fight for justice and equity with the courage and clarity this moment demands. That is how we build a future worth fighting for.”
While his protest inspired other NFL players (and athletes elsewhere) to follow suit, and the league itself also briefly seemed aligned with his message, Kaepernick was released by the 49ers after the season and never played in the league again despite numerous attempts. In 2017, he filed a grievance against the NFL, accusing league owners of collusion, though in 2019 it was announced that he had reached a confidential settlement with the league.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio raises some interesting points about what comes next. The NFL almost certainly doesn’t want the headache of this book coming out, and they’ve seemingly squashed similar tomes before. Also, will the notoriously press-shy Kaepernick do a series of interviews and appearances to promote the book?
If the project did stall out, it wouldn’t be the first time a Kaepernick tell-all failed to see the light of day.
We’ve got five months to find out before the book presumably drops immediately after the first week of the 2026 NFL season.