Eric Reid continued to protest racial and social injustice by kneeling during the national anthem Sunday before his first game with the Carolina Panthers.
The former 49ers safety, who signed with the Panthers on Sept. 27, joined quarterback Colin Kaepernick in the protest at the start of the 2016 NFL season. Reid and Kaepernick were the first NFL players to kneel during the anthem.
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In March, Reid told Matt Maiocco he would consider different forms of protests aside from taking a knee.
“From the beginning, Colin has been flexible,” Reid said. “He started by sitting. He changed it up. We decided to kneel. And we understand that you got to change with the times. So I’m not saying I’m going to stop being active, because I won’t. I’m just going to consider different ways to be active, different ways to bring awareness to the issues of this country to improve on.
“I don’t think it’ll be in the form of protesting during the anthem. And I said ‘during’ because it’s crazy to me that the narrative got changed to we were protesting the anthem, because that wasn’t the case. But I think we’re going to take a different approach to how to be active.”
Reid started at safety in his Panthers debut.
Reid spent the first five years of his NFL career with the 49ers. He has 319 tackles and 10 interceptions.
