Lost in the epic comeback by the LSU Tigers in the National Championship game was a moment on the field that showed a former top teacher in Minnesota taking a knee during the National Anthem to stand up for “marginalized and oppressed people,” she said.
Kelly Holstine, the state’s “Teacher of the Year” in 2018, was a among a group of educators honored before the game at the Superdome in New Orleans.
She would later tweet a picture of herself kneeling while referencing former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Like many before, I respectfully kneeled during Nat’l Anthem because, ‘No one is free until we are all free,’” wrote Holstine.
Holstine’s decision to protest follows her call to boycott a White House ceremony in April honoring top educators from around the country. She would skip that visit.
“I just decided that it felt like the right thing to do, to have a very respectful protest,” Holstine told The Hill. “It’s really Martin Luther King Jr. says it best: ‘Nobody’s free until we’re all free.”
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NCAA stories via Google! Follow Us
“I think that the current environment that is being created and has been created in his tenure definitely adds to my feelings of wanting to support individuals who are not being supported,” she said. “I really feel like our country is not serving the needs of all its inhabitants … so many humans right now that are not being given the respect and the rights that they deserve.”
She found out Trump would be on the field during the National Anthem, so she then made the decision to kneel after consulting with her wife.
“Not everybody is given the opportunity to have a voice, and I can take a small moment, a respectful moment of protest, and exercise my First Amendment rights, and stand up for my students and for vulnerable adults and for people who are not treated in the way that they should be,” Holstine said. “It feels like my responsibility to do that.”
