Before “End Racism” became a familiar part of an NFL broadcast, the messages on players’ helmets were far more personal. In 2020, as the league returned to play after a summer marked by protests over racial injustice, players could honor specific people affected by systemic racism and police brutality by carrying their names or initials onto the field. Some chose names such as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Alton Sterling, but then the messages grew larger.
In Week 1 of the 2020 season, “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” appeared in opposite end zones across the league. By 2021, players could choose from a broader group of messages, including “Stop Hate,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Inspire Change,” and “Say Their Stories.” Over time, the language continued changing with the moment: “Choose Love,” first adopted by the Buffalo Bills after the 2022 supermarket shooting in Buffalo, eventually became a league-wide option. That evolution is continuing in 2026.
Per a Front Office Sports report by Michael McCarthy, for the seventh straight year, the NFL’s stance on social justice messaging will remain unchanged. As we gear up for the football season, the familiar words “End Racism,” “Stop Hate,” “Inspire Change,” and more will greet us at the end zones.
Through it all, the road from a player’s personal tribute on a helmet to a message spanning an NFL end zone says plenty about how much the league itself has changed.
From 2021 through 2024, “End Racism” appeared in one of the Super Bowl end zones. But at Super Bowl LIX, the league replaced it with “Choose Love,” while “It Takes All of Us” occupied the other end zone. The decision drew criticism, particularly from those who saw the absence of “End Racism” as significant.
Roger Goodell later explained that “Choose Love” reflected the country after several tragedies in the weeks leading up to the game, including the New Orleans terrorist attack, the Southern California wildfires and the deadly midair collision near Washington, D.C. “End Racism” had appeared in the NFC Championship Game two weeks earlier and remained part of the league’s approved messaging options.
That flexibility has become part of the NFL’s approach. Last season, all 32 teams could choose from “End Racism,” “Stop Hate,” “Choose Love,” and “Inspire Change” for one end zone at home games, while “It Takes All of Us” remained in the opposite end zone. The messages also shared space with campaigns such as Salute to Service and Crucial Catch. But, the league’s broader social justice infrastructure extends beyond what appears on television during a game.
Through Inspire Change, launched in 2019, the NFL has supported organizations working in areas including education, economic advancement, police-community relations and criminal justice reform. Since 2017, the league says its Inspire Change efforts have provided more than $460 million to grant partners and grassroots organizations.
That institutional shift also followed years of tension between the league and its players. In June 2020, Roger Goodell acknowledged that the NFL had been “wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier” and said, “We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter.”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” also became part of the league’s presentation during that period. It was played before every Week 1 game in 2020 and has since been performed during Super Bowl pregame ceremonies, including renditions by Alicia Keys and Coco Jones.
Colin Kaepernick’s place in that history remains unavoidable, even though the NFL’s social justice work now involves players, teams and community organizations far beyond one person. Kaepernick has not played an NFL game since the 2016 season, but 2026 has brought renewed recognition for the work that came to define his life after football.
The first one came in July, when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) named him an honoree for the Ralph Ellison Award for Defenders of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Arts, Business, Science, and Sports. Kaepernick shared the honor with Bruce Springsteen, while Vanita Gupta and Erwin Chemerinsky were among the other honorees.
The second came much more recently. This August, Kaepernick was also named the 2026 Humanitarian of the Year by the Muhammad Ali Center. He is scheduled to receive the award in November in Louisville, with the Center recognizing his activism and work through Know Your Rights Camp.
He is also preparing to release his memoir, The Perilous Fight, on September 15. The book will take Kaepernick back to the story that transformed his life, while his subsequent work has increasingly moved beyond the football field.
That is the backdrop to the NFL’s decision in 2026. A decade after Kaepernick’s protest turned the national anthem into one of football’s biggest flashpoints, the league continues to make space for messages about the issues that came to define that era.
Kaepernick has not played an NFL snap in nearly a decade. Yet as another season approaches, the field itself will continue carrying messages born out of a period when football had to confront questions it could no longer ignore.