In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Blew Smoke — a popular black-owned cigar shop — decided to change its Sunday routine for Week 1 of the NFL season.
Gloria Blake, the owner, saw Colin Kaepernick is out of a job this season, which she said is unfair. With Kaepernick’s protests still finding a home in the league and calls for national boycotts of the NFL circulating before the season, Blake and her customers figured the first Sunday of the season was better spent discussing systemic injustice and white supremacy.
This is a look inside how one shop — of many this season — has decided to boycott the NFL.
“We made a decision because we needed to create a space and an experience for those people that have already made a decision to protest,” Blake said. She said her customers were calling for something like this.
“The catalyst was already in action. For us, our decision to support was because we know when you’re in a situation and you wanna stop doing something, you need to start doing something else.”