Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist, founder of Turning Point USA, and close ally of President Donald Trump, was assassinated on Wednesday afternoon during a campus event at Utah Valley University. Police say a sniper opened fire from a nearby rooftop as Kirk spoke to a crowd of nearly 3,000. Utah Governor Spencer Cox condemned the killing as a “political assassination.”
Kirk, 31, built a national following by rallying young conservatives. But for many Black Americans, his legacy is defined not by his organizing prowess but by his words—comments that many saw as deeply racist and corrosive to democracy.
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Kirk frequently cast doubt on the qualifications of Black professionals. “If I see a black pilot, I’m gonna be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified,” he once said.
In another instance, he referred to “a moronic black woman” in customer service and questioned whether she was hired “because of her excellence, or … because of affirmative action.”
He also attacked civil rights leaders and the laws that reshaped the nation. “Clarence Thomas was a far better black role model to celebrate than Martin Luther King. Period. End of story. This guy is not worthy of a national holiday,” Kirk said.
At Turning Point USA’s America Fest in 2023, he went further: “MLK was awful. … We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
Black women in public life were also targets. He called journalist Joy Reid, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “affirmative action picks,” claiming they did not “have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
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Even as the nation embraced Juneteenth as a federal holiday commemorating emancipation, Kirk denounced it. “Juneteenth should not be a federal holiday,” he wrote on social media in June. In a video, he argued, “This holiday is not about celebrating emancipation regardless of the veneer they put on it.”
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For Shavonda LaKay Pannell, the moment highlighted racial hypocrisy.
“I find it very odd that this same energy is never met when it’s Black boys or men killed by the police who were doing absolutely nothing and not resisting arrest. … Trayvon Martin died and they called him a thug as if that made it ok. … It breaks my heart because I have always been one who loves everyone regardless of race, political views, etc. but it does hurt seeing those same people have so much to say and yet have nothing to say when a Black person was murdered for absolutely no reason.”
Kirk also claimed George Floyd died from a drug overdose, not from Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on his neck. {snip}
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