UPDATED: Oct. 24, 2017 at 10:30 p.m.

Five knees sunk into the turf of the Carrier Dome as thousands of people looked on.

The act lasted about a minute, but the hope is that the message will carry on for a lifetime.

Five Remembrance Scholars knelt while the national anthem played ahead of the Syracuse football game against Pittsburgh on Oct. 7. More than two weeks later, at the start of Remembrance Week, three of those scholars reflected on the moment in the Dome.

The modern kneeling movement follows a nationwide trend that originated when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick protested police brutality against brown and black people by kneeling during the national anthem before the San Francisco 49ers’ final preseason game on Sept. 1, 2016.

Kaepernick’s peaceful protest has polarized audiences. While some applauded him for using his platform for an issue he cares about, others claim kneeling is disrespectful to the United States’ flag and anthem. Since his decision to kneel, Kaepernick has gone unsigned for the 2017 season. Some experts claim it’s because of a decline in his performance, while others say he’s being blackballed for taking a political stance.

Remembrance Week looks back at the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy, when a flight carrying 259 individuals, including 35 students studying through Syracuse University Abroad, exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in a terrorist attack. Everyone on the plane was killed. Each year, 35 senior SU students are chosen to represent the students studying abroad through SU.

Erin Welsh consulted with the parents of the late SU student she represents, Jason Coker, before coming to the decision to kneel during the national anthem at a Syracuse University football game.
Wasim Ahmad | Staff Photographer

None of the scholars who took a knee at the football game knew for certain whether they’d be kneeling alone. Zainab Abdali, an English and textual studies and mathematics double major, and Erin Welsh, a political science major, discussed kneeling prior to the game, but leaving the conversation, neither scholar was sure what the other’s decision would be on the game day.

Before committing to kneeling, Welsh called the parents of Jason Coker, an SU student killed aboard Flight 103 who she is representing during Remembrance Week. In representing their son, she wanted to open a conversation on the topic and receive their approval before moving forward. Their conversation lasted an hour, and by the end his parents told her to move forward in good faith.

“I think 20-year-old Jason would have knelt,” Coker’s father said to her.

But no one can say for certain what Coker and the other students would have wanted, Welsh said.

“None of us know who they would have been,” Abdali added. “That was taken away from them.”

Welsh and Abdali agreed having several students kneel took some of the nervous edge off the silent protest. They weren’t acting alone, rather, they knelt together in solidarity. Welsh said it was empowering to see the handful of scholars come together for what they believe in.

Zainab Abdali was unsure if other Remembrance Scholars would kneel with her on game day.
Wasim Ahmad | Staff Photographer

For Abdali, kneeling seemed like the obvious thing to do.

“The rights I have, the civil rights that I have, are because of what black activists have done over the years,” Abdali said. “Because of them I have my rights, quite literally because they put themselves in harm’s way. This was me just showing up for the black community.”

Cierra Britton didn’t know other Remembrance Scholars were contemplating taking a knee. Before stepping onto the field, Britton was rethinking her decision. She was flustered and thoughts of going home kept popping up in her mind.

But once she was on the field, Britton knew she only had one option.

“I can’t go down there and not kneel,” Britton said.

As she knelt, the world around her dimmed. She didn’t notice if there were reactions from the crowd or from those standing around her. Her eyes flickered across the space, but she wasn’t taking in the outside world.

“I was reflecting on the movement,” Britton said. “I was reflecting on my past and my community’s past. I was reflecting on the greater minority’s past in the United States, and I was thinking about how I could act in this moment to continue to act forward.”

Britton said she took a knee as a way to bring awareness to the lack of response and aid for countries in the Caribbean affected by the hurricanes, but at the core of her action is a mix of Kaepernick’s original message and her own.

“We have these consistent injustices against people, whether it’s black lives, whether it’s Latino lives — it’s minority lives that we just don’t see that equate in American society,” Britton said. “A lot of it was sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement … but I don’t think it’s fair to forget the other minority lives that are just as equally unsupported.”

Cierra Britton did not know that other Remembrance Scholars were planning on kneeling at the football game, but knew she had to when she stepped on the field.
Wasim Ahmad | Staff Photographer

For Britton, kneeling was the most accurate way to approach an anthem that claims to represent the home of the brave and land of the free but that in reality is oppressive of so many groups, she said.

When Rosa Parks wouldn’t move to the back of the bus, she wasn’t protesting the bus system, but rather the larger issue of oppression, Britton said. When the scholars knelt, they weren’t protesting the anthem, but rather the nation cowering in situations that required bravery and action, she said.

After she knelt, Britton was put in the spotlight after Syracuse.com published an article about the protest. The article garnered more than 250 comments — most of which were against Britton’s kneeling. Britton knew that by taking a stand she risked having eyes on her, but she hopes that her intended message gets through.

“If I’m able to educate one person, they can educate two, and those two can educate another two. It creates a tree of knowledge,” Britton said.

While Britton received a lot of negativity online, the opposite was true on campus. Students walking by recognized her and lent words of support. She received emails from faculty and alumni affirming her stance.

On Thursday at 5 a.m., Britton received a proud text from her parents. A faculty email is what most touched her. The professor said they wanted to kneel alongside her, and in the future, that’s what they’ll be doing.

“That’s exactly what I was going for,” Britton said. “…I saw that message, I reflected on it and now in the future I will act.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the number of individuals aboard Pan Am Flight 103 was misstated. There were 259 people on the flight. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on October 23, 2017 at 10:19 pm

Contact Stacy: sfern100@syr.edu | @StacyFernandezB