Colin Kaepernick’s teen years are about to get the Ava DuVernay treatment. Colin in Black & White, a six-episode limited series about the football icon’s formative years and how they shaped him as an activist, has received a straight-to-series order from Netflix, per The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to DuVernay and Kaepernick, Michael Starrbury—who received an Emmy nomination for the fourth installment of DuVernay’s When They See Us—will serve as an executive producer.
Kaepernick sparked a nationwide conversation in 2016, when he protested police brutality and racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem at the start of a San Francisco 49ers game. A year later, he became a free agent after teams across the country declined to sign him, and just last year the NFL settled a lawsuit in which Kaepernick alleged the league and its owners colluded to keep him out. “Too often we see race and Black stories portrayed through a white lens,” Kaepernick said in a statement. “We seek to give new perspective to the differing realities that Black people face. We explore the racial conflicts I faced as an adopted Black man in a white community, during my high school years. It’s an honor to bring these stories to life in collaboration with Ava for the world to see.”
Read it at The Hollywood Reporter
