WOAY-TV
Members of the Bluefield College men s basketball team kneel during the national anthem before a Jan. 30 game.
When Ayanna Strother, a junior on the Bluefield College women’s basketball team, heard that the men’s team had been suspended for kneeling during the national anthem before games, she and her teammates weren t surprised.
The decision to kneel was not a spur-of-the-moment gesture. Like college and professional athletes of color across the country who had done the same thing, the mostly Black men s team wanted to make their presence felt and raise public awareness about police brutality against people of color and racial injustice in society at large, said Strother, who has since been participating in other protest actions led by the college s athletes, including non-Black athletes.