“My dad, he served in the Navy for nine years,” Trammell said. “I thought, ‘Wait, is he disrespecting my dad?’ and that’s when I kind of had a problem with it. I thought, he needs to find a better way to do this.”

Through what he described as personal growth and “educating myself,” Trammell, who is African-American, eventually found clarity in Kaepernick’s message.

“Growing and understanding what he was actually talking about, it made me understand, he’s doing this for me,” Trammell said.