By: Roy Douglas Malonson
The image of Charlie Kirk collapsing on stage at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, has already become one of the most replayed videos in America. A sniper’s bullet ended his life in front of thousands of stunned students, echoing an era that many believed was long behind us. For Black Americans, the moment doesn’t feel new. It feels like history repeating itself—the kind of public violence that silenced Medgar Evers in 1963, gunned down Malcolm X in 1965, and ended the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
It also recalls the deadly attacks on members of the Black Panther Party, who were hunted by both white supremacists and government forces for daring to defend Black communities and demand justice. The violence of that decade did not stop with Black leaders. White allies who stood with the movement also paid the ultimate price. Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five, was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for helping transport marchers after Selma’s Bloody Sunday. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two young white activists, were killed alongside James Chaney in Mississippi for registering Black voters. The message of the 1960s was clear: whether Black or white, anyone who challenged the racial order risked being silenced by violence.
More than sixty years later, the cycle feels unbroken. Kirk was no civil rights leader—indeed, he built his platform on criticizing the legacy of civil rights—but his assassination forces us to ask whether America has ever truly moved beyond its reliance on violence to settle its deepest conflicts. His words often targeted Black people, and his death at the hands of a gunman underscores a truth we already know: once hate takes hold, it spares no one.
Charlie Kirk did not simply disagree with civil rights; he attacked them at their roots. At a December 2023 speech, he called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “huge mistake,” claiming it created permanent government structures that should never have existed. For African Americans, that law was not a mistake—it was a hard-won triumph carved out through marches, jail cells, and spilled blood. To call it an error was to dismiss the sacrifices of a generation. Kirk also described Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful” and “not a good person,” an attack on one of the most revered figures in American history.
King’s dream was never perfect, but to deny his role as a moral compass for justice was to spit on a cornerstone of Black progress.
Kirk’s rhetoric cut deeper when he cast suspicion on Black professionals. On his program, he said that if he saw a Black pilot, his first thought would be whether that person was truly qualified. That single remark tapped into centuries of doubt Black people have faced in classrooms, workplaces, and boardrooms—the belief that no matter how hard we work or how much we achieve, our success will always be questioned.
He went further, portraying Black neighborhoods as violent places where young people “prowl” for entertainment and mocking Black women in positions of influence by suggesting they were there because of affirmative action, not ability. Again and again, Kirk chose to frame Blackness as a liability, a danger, or a fraud.
When he embraced the so-called “Great Replacement” theory, insisting it was not a theory but a reality, he added his voice to a chorus of white nationalist propaganda. This conspiracy suggests that demographic change is a plot to erase white Americans, painting communities of color as the enemy. In the 1960s, segregationists warned that integration would ruin the nation. In 2025, Kirk repackaged the same fear in language tailored for viral clips and social media outrage.
The larger question is not only what Kirk said, but why so many white Americans still find comfort in this kind of rhetoric. The answer is rooted in history. Black progress has always been met with backlash from those who see equality as a threat to privilege. Every gain—from emancipation, to voting rights, to affirmative action— has been followed by a wave of resistance. The myths endure because they serve a purpose: they protect power. Kirk gave voice to these myths, and millions applauded him for saying out loud what many still whisper.
None of this excuses his assassination. Violence, whether in 1968 or 2025, cannot be the answer. But it reveals a sobering reality: hate, once unleashed, does not discriminate. Kirk may have targeted us with his words, but in the end, violence consumed him too.
For Black America, the lesson is both old and urgent. The cycle of violence is not broken, and the prejudice behind it is still alive. The question is not whether another assassination will come—it is whether America will finally confront why so many white people continue to see Black lives as lesser, undeserving, or dangerous. Until that changes, the 1960s will not stay in the past. They will keep replaying before our eyes, and the sound of gunfire will continue to drown out the possibility of peace.
