Sixty Years Ago She Refused to Stand for the Anthem

Before Colin Kaepernick kneeled, high jumper Rose Robinson defied tradition at the Pan American Games. Her resistance — and legacy — didn’t start nor end there.

Amira Rose Davis
ZORA
Published in
10 min readSep 26, 2019

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InIn the waning days of summer in 1959, Chicago was overrun with sporting frenzy. Over 2,000 athletes from 24…

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Amira Rose Davis
ZORA
Writer for

is an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Penn State University and the co-host of the Feminist Sports Podcast “Burn it All Down”.