San Francisco, CA
Jim Brown On Ex-San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick Kneeling For National Anthem: That Was A Phone Call For The Ages

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 19: (L-R) Jim Brown and Morgan Brown attend the 22nd Annual … [+]
Getty Images for Harold & Carole Pump Foundation
For those of us given the home and cell numbers of Jim Brown by the legend himself, you never knew what was coming on the other end. The greatest athlete ever also ranked among the Most Interesting Persons In The History of the World, and he always answered the phone.
Then again, it just seemed that way since all of my conversations with Brown were never less than memorable.
Hey, Jim. Terence Moore here.
How’s it going?
“What’s happening, Terence? Go ahead,” Brown said in his baritone voice from his home in Los Angeles.
We chatted in the fall of 2016 after Colin Kaepernick spent days earlier kneeling for the first time during the national anthem as the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers in protest of police brutality and social injustice.
Yeah. I just wanted to get your thoughts on what Kaepernick just did before an exhibition game, because it appears you have athletes sort of getting out of that apathetic state they were under for the longest time.
(Pause for several seconds)
“Well, I think you’re calling the wrong guy, my man,” said Brown, and I’d seen this before. He was just stretching before preparing to carry his version of a ball disguised as an answer for a long gainer. “I don’t relate to, um (slight chuckle) situations like this. There’s nothing for me to say. Sorry about that.”
Sometimes, such words meant Brown was done with the conversation.
Thanks, my man.
Bye.
Other times (like this one), you had to stay in your lane. Then James Nathaniel Brown would sprint your way with an answer as somebody who was the epitome of peerless at so many different levels.
(Original Caption) 1955: Portrait of Syracuse basketball player Jimmy Brown. He is shown in uniform, … [+]
Bettmann Archive
In athletics, Brown flourished at basketball and track. Then came his love affair with lacrosse, which has been around since the 17th century.
So, this was telling: When the Premier Lacrosse League began in 2019, its officials named their most valuable player award after Brown, who scored five goals in the first half of the 1957 North-South All-Star game along the way to becoming the first Black member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Brown also played a little football. He used his Syracuse days to reach the College Football Hall of Fame, and after a vote from an ESPN panel in 2020 of 150 media folks, college administrators and former coaches and players, he was crowned the greatest college football player ever.
To hear The Sporting News tell it in 2002, Brown was the greatest football player, period. He left Syracuse as that four-sport sensation to become a bruising NFL running back with finesse and durability at 6-foot-2 and 232 pounds over nine seasons through 1965 for the Cleveland Browns.
How elite was Brown at that position?
Here’s all you need to know: According to overthecap.com, the five highest-paid running backs in the NFL last season were Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers at $16 million, Alvin Kamara of the New Orleans Saints at $15 million, Dalvin Cook of the Minnesota Vikings at $12.6 million and Derrick Henry of the Tennessee Titans at $12.5 million, and Nick Chubb of the Cleveland Browns at $12.2 million.
UNDATED: Cleveland Browns’ running back Jim Brown #32 runs with the ball. Jim Brown played for the … [+]
Focus on Sport via Getty Images
If you add those salaries together and multiply them by the number of seasons Brown led the NFL in rushing (8), and then multiply that by how many yards per game he averaged per carry (5.2), and then multiply that by all the times he shocked reality by doing the incredible (numerous), you still would fall short of what the football gods would say you should pay Brown today in his prime.
Consider, too, that when Brown shocked the combination of the Browns, the NFL and conventional wisdom by retiring from the league after the 1965 season to join Hollywood as a full-time actor, he had a season to go on a two-year contract worth (wait for it) $60,000 per season.
According to Sportskeeda.com, Brown’s net worth near the end of 2022 was around $30 million, and the website attributed much of that to his frequent appearances on the big screen and the little one called television from 1964 through 2019.
Brown also continued his passion for civil rights after bolting the NFL. For one, he organized “The Cleveland Summit” in June 1967. He included other prominent Black athletes such as Lew Alcindor before he became Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and Bill Russell. They gathered to support Muhammad Ali’s stance against serving in the U.S. military during the height of the Vietnam War.
That said, Brown battled personal demons, and they were ugly enough to tarnish his image beyond repair among large chunks of the public. He had several arrests for domestic abuse against his wife and other women. He even went to jail for battering one of his golfing partners.
There was always that other Brown, though. He did everything from curbing gang violence in Los Angeles with his presence and his words to counseling ex-convicts on becoming productive citizens to ripping athletes for vanishing during the 1980s and 1990s on social issues.
So, when the Kaepernick thing first surfaced nearly seven years ago, I dialed Brown for a reaction.
I knew the deal. He’d either talk for a few seconds before ending the call abruptly yet politely (due to his schedule or lack of interest in the topic), or he’d stick around for as long as I kept firing questions.
This was one of those rare moments in between.
PITTSBURGH, PA – NOVEMBER 15: Jim Brown, former running back for the Cleveland Browns and a member … [+]
Getty Images
You’ve got a lot of people in the African American community seeing this Kaepernick thing as sort of a bigger-than-life cause, but when you look at the ones you were involved in with Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell and Arthur Ashe. This seems like it’s not even close to that level.
(Pause)
“Well, look. I’m going to say this, and then I’ve gotta get off the phone,” Brown said, with another pause. “I am not sitting here waiting for any youngster to guide my way to contributing to the benefit of individuals or to the less fortunate. So, if I’m not a part of a person’s life, I don’t have an opinion on them in the sense that, why should I say something that is totally unnecessary?
“I do my own works, and that speaks for itself.”
Oh, you’re right about that.
“I don’t relate to certain things, you know. I like to give respect to people like yourself who ask for my opinion, but that young man has decided to do what he wants to do, and he has a right to do it. But I don’t sit around waiting on some young man who decides he wants to do something, and that’s going to be my contribution to try to help people in my life.
“Why would I wait around for somebody else to show me the way?”
I gotcha.
“Well, boss. I’ve got to go. Have a good one, OK?”
Same to you, Jim.
And God speed.

San Francisco, CA
'It takes the hood to save the hood': United Playaz expands its work in San Francisco

On June 12, Filipino Independence Day, the hood in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood got a little stronger.
Rudy Corpuz, the founder of United Playaz – a violence prevention and youth development organization – along with community members and local politicians, were on hand for the opening for UP’s new building at 1044 Howard Street. United Playaz is expanding right next door to its original location. It’s a violence prevention and youth development organization.
“We’re stakeholders because we own land and property,” Corpuz said.
Corpuz grew up and still lives in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood.
“You got families who’ve been here since the 60s who are still here, Filipino families,” he said. “I actually live on the next alley, Minna Street.”
Near his home is the new United Playaz facility on Howard Street.
“This is our new building that’s going to be cut June 12, 2025, the same day that my mom was born, Filipino Independence Day and the day I got arrested as an adult, June 12,” Corpuz said.
Outside the building on Howard Street, a mural of faces. People, Corpuz said, that have been involved in the community, whether they have passed away from gun violence or are helping to shut down and stop gun violence.
The new UP facility will be used to help build children’s literacy and for restorative justice services.
In the alleys of SOMA, the Filipino history dates back more than 100 years when the first generation of immigrants arrived in the United States.
Carla Laurel is the executive director of West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Center, which is located a couple blocks from United Playaz.
“West Bay Filipino Multi-Service Center has been serving the community since 1968,” Laurel said. “We own in full. This is our hub. Got the blueprint from Rudy here in United Playaz. We’re in the Filipino Cultural Heritage District known as Soma Pilipinas that was named more recently because of the 120-year history of Filipinos in San Francisco.”
West Bay and United Playaz collaborate as one community, offering programs for kindergarten through eighth grade. They serve 150 to 200 children a day.
“How West Bay even started was a lot of the Filipinos that had already been born and raised here seeing recent immigrant Filipinos coming and saying, ‘How do we help too?’” Laurel said.
Corpuz said growing up in SOMA meant having to grow up fast.
“Drugs, gangs, just a lot of fast money moving around and survival,” he said.
That lifestyle sent Corpuz on a destructive path and to prison. His experiences from the past are now shaping how he’s moving his community forward. United Playaz owns both its buildings on Howard Street. Many of the people who work with United Playaz today are former felons and lifers.
At the new building, Corpuz is dedicating it to the women who work alongside him.
“The women, I believe, are like the backbone to the movement,” he said. “Women work harder than men. You guys will go harder than men, I don’t know, for some reason. And they’re the ones who make the change happen.”
San Francisco, CA
Palestinian Activists Came to Speak at California Synagogue — But Face Deportation at the Airport

Two Palestinian peace activists from the occupied West Bank were detained upon landing in the San Francisco airport Wednesday and face deportation after immigration officials unexpectedly revoked their visas.
Eid Hathaleen and Awdah Hathaleen, cousins from the Masafer Yatta village of Um Al Khair, have been unreachable for the past day, according to organizers and a local lawmaker advocating on their behalf. As of Thursday, they were believed to remain in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody at San Francisco International Airport. The United States is expected to deport them to Jordan, where their flight to U.S. departed.
The cousins were scheduled to begin a speaking tour hosted by a California synagogue and local churches — and were visiting the U.S. with valid tourist visas, organizers said. Eid, a leader in his village, has been on several speaking tours over the past decade and has documented Israeli settler violence — including the Israeli government’s destruction of his village and his own home in July 2024. Awdah — an activist, English teacher, and journalist — has reported on past Israeli attacks on their village for +972 Magazine.
CBP officials did not disclose the reason for the pair’s detainment and did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Organizers say the men are being targeted for their pro-Palestinian advocacy. The Trump administration has imprisoned and attempted to deport activists who advocate for Palestinian human rights — including Columbia University organizers Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk — under the guise of combating antisemitism.
“These were Palestinian activists and humanitarians who were here to bridge relations with the Jewish community,” said Ben Linder, who helped organize the tour and is co-chair of J Street Silicon Valley, a local chapter of the liberal pro-Israeli lobby. “They were being sponsored by Jewish synagogues — these are exactly the people we need in our country right now, to bridge the divide that we have happening globally. Yet our federal government is denying them a voice.”

Photo: Ben Linder
Phil Weintraub, lead organizer with the Face to Face committee of the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California, which planned to host the speaking tour, went to the San Francisco airport Wednesday to pick up Eid and Awdah. After he didn’t hear from them for several hours, Weintraub alerted other organizers and attorneys.
Their whereabouts were unknown until Bilal Mahmood, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was notified and rushed to the airport Wednesday evening. CBP officials confirmed to him that both Eid and Awdah were in their custody.
“Once I showed up and literally banged on the doors of Border Patrol, they finally called back and and also exited their offices and informed us of what was happening,” Mahmood told The Intercept.
Mahmood has spent the past week attending protests against the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration raids across the United States. In San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 15 undocumented immigrants, including a toddler, who had shown up at a federal office for an ICE check-in, according to Mission Local. The day after Eid and Awdah’s detention, federal agents ejected California Sen. Alex Padilla, pinned him to the ground, and handcuffed him for asking questions at Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s press conference.
Padilla was quickly released. But the peace activists from the West Bank, far more marginalized than a U.S. senator, remained in custody and unreachable on Thursday. Mahmood said their detainment was part of President Donald Trump’s broader attack on immigrants.

Photo: Ben Linder
“This is everything from ICE raids to the travel ban to now leveraging the federal government’s powers to deny free speech,” he told The Intercept.
Erin Axelman, co-director of the film “Israelism,” a documentary about young American Jews who grappled with Israel’s abuse of Palestinians, has joined other organizers in advocating for Eid and Awdah’s release.
“This is obviously part of the pattern of incredible Palestinian peacemakers and activists being detained and deported simply for their very reasonable freedom of speech,” Axelman told The Intercept. “Any Palestinian voice is threatening to the Trump administration at this point and it seems like simply existing as a Palestinian is enough to get you detained or deported by the Trump administration.”
San Francisco, CA
Bay Area organizer concerned about violence at protests

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