Colin Kaepernick Starts Know Your Rights Fund to Help Minorities Amid COVID-19

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick announced Thursday he has launched the Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund to help minority communities during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic:

Kaepernick said in the video that he is donating $100,000 of his own money to the cause and is seeking more donations. 

"Black and brown communities are being disproportionately devastated by COVID-19 because of hundreds of years of structural racism," he said in the announcement.

There have been more than 640,000 positive COVID-19 cases in the United States through Thursday, leading to over 30,000 deaths, according to CNN.com.

A study from the Centers for Disease Control found that African Americans represent 33 percent of those hospitalized for the disease despite making up only 13 percent of the general population, according to Dante Chinni of NBC News.

Kaepernick's efforts to help these communities go back to 2016 when he created the Know Your Rights Camp, which seeks to "advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization." The organization has led free seminars for young people in eight cities.

The 32-year-old has been out of the NFL since 2016 but has still shown interest in returning to the league if given the opportunity.