For little over a year, the nation has been overtaken by protests in the NFL, NBA and other major sports leagues. It all began with former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during a preseason game. 

Now, he has become a major figure in the fight against police brutality and racial injustices despite intense backlash from the right, NFL owners and President Donald Trump. A panel of mental health care providers, experts and activists held a town hall meeting in Philadelphia Thursday, Nov. 2 to discuss the value of the protests on black athletes' mental health. 

Reggie Banks, CEO of Dunbar Associates, said the protests serve as powerful imagery for black people needing symbols. 

“We don’t have ‘Soul Train,’ we don’t have Bill Cosby. You’re talking about a small percentage of people that have a platform in America that represents the entire black race,” Banks said. “The black race is saying, ‘Wait a minute. We have a problem here.’”

Others believe that the protests are more significant because of what players are putting on the line. Joe Watkins, a Republican analyst and MSNBC contributor, said the players are sacrificing their careers – in many ways like Kap has.

 “NFL players have the chance to make their owners a lot of money and to entertain us with what they do on the field,” Watkins said. “But it’s a wonderful thing when players can say, ‘You know what? What’s even more important than my ability to play football is my chance to make the society in which we live a better place by making a statement.’”

Chad Dion Lassiter, president of the group Black Men at Penn, believes that athletes like Michael Bennett, LeBron James, Steph Curry and others are not forgetting the struggles of average black men who are most vulnerable to racial injustice. 

“We want the owners, general managers and coaches to have a conversation about the black and brown bodies that are dying in the streets with impunity,” said Lassiter.