Replication Data for: Shut Up and Play: Black Athletes, Protest Politics and Black Political Action

The convergence of sports and celebrity can have a powerful influence on everyday politics, especially for groups underrepresented in mainstream American society. This paper examines the relationship between race, celebrity, and social movements - specifically, Colin Kapernick's protest of police violence. We ask whether Kaepernick's activism can mobilize black Americans to political action? Using the 2017 Black Voter Project (BVP) Pilot Study, we explore African-American political engagement in the 2016 election, a time void of President Obama as a mobilizing figure. We find that African-Americans who strongly approve of Kapernick's protest engage in politics at elevated rates even after accounting for alternative explanations. Moreover, approval for Kaepernick also moderates other forces rooted in group identity, such as identification with the Black Lives Matter movement. In the end, Kaepernick and the protest movement he leads offers a powerful mobilizing force for an African American.