The NFL will paint social justice messages in end zones for their upcoming 2020 season. According to reporter Albert Breer, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that messages such as “End racism” and “It takes all of us” will appear on football fields during a conference call on Tuesday (Sept. 1).
“NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says on a call that the phrases ‘End Racism’ and ‘It Takes All Of Us’ will appear in the end zones this year,” Breer wrote on Twitter.
“The NFL stands with the Black community, the players, clubs and fans confronting systemic racism,” Goodell said during the call, per NBC Sport’s ProFootballTalk. “We will not relent in our work.”
The messages will be similar to the NBA and WNBA’s decision to paint “Black Lives Matter” on basketball courts. Both leagues also allowed players to wear social justice statements and — in the WNBA’s case — names of victims of police brutality on their jerseys.
Last week, basketball, hockey and tennis players boycotted or postponed sporting events to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake. While the NFL season doesn’t begin until Sept. 10, MVP Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens issued a statement expressing their support for the protests and called for police reform.
“With yet another example of racial discrimination with the shooting of Jacob Blake, and the unlawful abuse of peaceful protestors, we MUST unify as a society,” the statement read. “It is imperative that all people — regardless of race, religion, creed or belief — come together to say ‘Enough is enough!’”
The statement went on to list clear demands, such as the arrest of the officers involved in both Blake and Breonna Taylor’s shootings; a Senate vote for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020; criminal justice reform and more.
“We will use our general platform to drive change now,” the team added. “Not just for our generation, but for the generations that follow, for our sons and daughters and for their children.”