Every right-thinking, morally correct person should be offended by and should vigorously denounce the political murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Everyone is attributing Kirk’s murder to political violence; they are wrong. Political violence is a symptom and a reflection of what’s happening in American society, which makes it a certain factor in Kirk’s murder, not the cause of Kirk’s murder. Unfortunately, the cause of Kirk’s murder is more complicated than political violence, but fortunately, the cure for what truly caused Kirk’s murder is right in front of us if only America will choose to take the cure.
In the aftermath of his violent murder the thing often said about Charlie Kirk is “Charlie was nonviolent he was fighting with words not weapons”, at first hearing at first glance this is merely a complimentary thing to say about “Charlie”, but the premise of this statement, that words are nonviolent is false, and this false premise is the ultimate cause of Kirk’s murder. Anyone familiar with the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., Kingian Nonviolence, is aware that it teaches that violence is not limited to physical contact. According to Kingian Nonviolence, the words we speak can be just as violent and hurtful as the physical blows we inflict with our fists.
This was the reason Dr. King would not allow anyone participating in a protest he led to display a protest sign that communicated anything hateful or violent, even against Civil Rights’ most violent American White opponents, such as Bull Conner is evil, Go to Hell George Wallace, or Death To The klu klux klan. On the contrary, Dr. King was heard to say many times at many protests, “Let us pray for our sick white brethren”, which evoked compassion and positivity towards his opponents, as opposed to Let us pray for our wrong white brethren, which might have been true but would have evoked negativity and possible retaliation towards his opponents. Dr. King also refused to use the phrase, even though he received tremendous criticism from many American Blacks for not doing so, “Black Power”, because, according to Dr. King, its use had “connotations of violence and separatism”.
Based on the words Charlie Kirk spoke when “fighting” for his political beliefs, words like, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified” and based on the principles of Kingian Nonviolence, meant Kirk operated as a violent advocate when speaking about his political ideology, and because the goals of his political ideology was to recreate American society based on belief in The Great Replacement conspiracy theory, his political ideology was a violent political ideology. Kirk simply replaced “fighting” with a gun, knife, or bomb with “fighting” by using violent verbal words. Kirk was far from being alone in his use of violent words, which is why it’s wrong to limit Kirk’s murder to political violence; it’s the societal verbal violence that has infected almost everyone and almost everything in America that killed Kirk.
In 2012, mainstream news media op-ed columnists started using the word lie. By 2016, all mainstream news media stopped using words like false, misleading, untrue, or incorrect to just start flat-out calling people liars. Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors were showing up at the 2016 presidential campaign rallies of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, committing the violent act of jumping on stage while the candidates were speaking and shouting them down with violent words of protest. By the time BLM showed up to a 2016 Donald Trump campaign rally to commit the same interruption violence, instead of Trump supporters yielding to BLM protestors, they escalated BLM’s verbal violence to physical violence by beating up the protestors while candidate Trump encouraged them by proclaiming, “I’ll pay any legal fees”.
In 2018, before all constraints on using violent words to communicate with each other had dissipated, The Associated Press (AP) felt they owed readers the following explanation for why they printed full profanity words with no use of symbols for the first time.
“President Donald Trump’s comment yesterday referring to “shithole” countries sparked discussion and reflection in our Washington and New York newsrooms, and around the world, as to when to use expletives and vulgar language in our news report. We do not use obscenities, racial epithets, or other offensive slurs in stories unless they are part of direct quotations and there is a compelling reason for them. If a story cannot be told without reference to them, we must first try to find a way to give the reader a sense of what was said without using the specific word or phrase. If a profanity, obscenity, or vulgarity is used, the story must be flagged at the top, advising editors to note the contents. In this case, the president’s use of the word was the news, especially because it was in the presence of lawmakers discussing serious immigration decisions. AP editors concluded that there was a compelling reason to allow a phrase that normally would not appear in AP’s content”.
In other words, since this was the first time in history a President of the United States had publicly used morally violent language, it had to be printed. Now in 2025, the same President makes new history by publicly dropping a violent verbal f-bomb on camera from the White House, but this time the news media is offering no explanations and replaying the video f-bomb not because it’s newsworthy that a President dropped an f-bomb, but rather because it’s now normal for the leader of America to publicly use morally violent language when speaking about American foreign or domestic policy.
Anyone who would blame President Trump for the current public discourse of violent words would be 100% wrong. Not since the days of P.T. Barnum has America seen such a brilliant marketer as Donald John Trump, who has used the current verbal violent public discourse, which he perceived but did not create, to his political advantage; he and the news media are just reflections, not regulators, of the growing public discourse of violent words routinely spoken in American society.
Many believe the current protest and political violence America is experiencing evolved from the 1970s, when Martin Luther King Jr was no longer alive to guide and encourage America to continue to use true, authentic nonviolent protest tactics. After Dr. King’s assassination, the era of violent anti-Vietnam War protests became the norm; it was then that nonviolent protesting started to transform into the violent protesting of today. It mostly started where you should least expect to find violent protests, the place that should appropriately be considered both a regulator and a reflection of American society, the place where Charlie Kirk met his unjust, murderous end: America’s college campuses.
In 1972, General William Westmoreland, commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968, was scheduled to address the Yale Political Union on the campus of Yale University. General Westmoreland attended the scheduled reception and dinner before his speech, but canceled his speech. Because his security detail alerted him that 600 loud and violent anti-war protestors had shown up, and they were prepared to either shout his speech down, to prevent it from being heard, or physically attack him.
Those 600 violent anti-war protestors had forgotten or never accepted that the core principle of Kingian nonviolent protesting is voluntary conversion, not compulsion or arm-twisting. They were violent protestors guilty of attempting involuntary coercion, forcing their will on others by threatening to inflict physical attack, loss of freedom to speak, and destruction of property if Gen. Westmoreland spoke. Kingian Nonviolence dictates that any physical attack, destruction of property, loss of freedom to speak, or imprisonment by law enforcement caused by a Kingian nonviolent protest is all endured by the Kingian nonviolent protestor, as a demonstration of the protestors’ commitment to the protest cause; it is never endured by the protest target.
It may be debatable for some if the 1972 cancellation of Gen. Westmoreland’s Yale University speech was literally the beginning of violent protesting in America; what’s not debatable is that it was a casebook example of what ultimately is responsible for the unjust evil murder of Charlie Kirk: violent words. Gen. Westmoreland didn’t cancel his speech because of any physical violence taking place on Yale’s campus; he canceled because of the verbal violence that was taking place on Yale’s campus. Gen. Westmoreland was a soldier, therefore a professionally trained practitioner of legal violence; he knew better than anyone that unchecked or unrestrained verbal violence always ends up escalating to physical violence.
Unfortunately, most American colleges are now the new home of intolerance to free thought and free speech in America, when, for the continued good health of American democracy, they must be the home of free thought and free speech. Free speech has gotten so much worse than the 1972 Yale cancellation of Gen. Westmoreland that by 2018, former Associate Professor of English James “Duke” Pesta at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh would issue a two-page contract on the first day of each class he taught. In part, it read:
Please go elsewhere if you are triggered by free speech, the free exchange of ideas, or people who express and defend ideas or opinions that differ from your own. Please go elsewhere if you are triggered by open, direct, and adult discussion of issues, including but not limited to issues of faith, war, violence, race, gender, and sexuality. And please go elsewhere if you feel entitled to censor the thoughts or words of others or insist they tailor their language or attitudes to your preferences.
Professor Pesta said at the time that he created the contract to counter the growing death trend of academic debate and free speech exchange of ideas on college campuses, saying, “I have learned through personal experience that university administrators and equity officers are often not willing to defend classroom speech, even if that speech is taken directly from books or used to explain them. Students are now keenly aware that they can put Professors through an intrusive investigatory process just by complaining, even without any corroborating evidence. I have even had department heads who allow students to substitute required classes for other courses just because students complain about what they have ‘heard’ a Professor’s classes are like. My contract is an attempt to make it harder for these kangaroo court investigations to be launched in the first place.”
A new 2025 survey, released by The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), of 68,000 college students across America found that 72% of college students think it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker on campus with whom they disagree. In other words, 72% of college students not only believe in censorship of speech and thought, but they also believe that it’s acceptable to use violence to censor speech and thought. This lethal combination, intolerance to opposing views and use of violent words, is what killed Charlie Kirk.
That’s why God bless them, people who say “Charlie was nonviolent, he was fighting with words, not weapons, he did it right, he encouraged free speech and debate by challenging people to prove him wrong, he fought with words”, are getting it only half right. Charlie Kirk was a free speech fighter whose assassination could appropriately make him a free speech martyr, but Charlie Kirk was not a nonviolent fighter; he was a violent fighter and defender for his values and beliefs, just because Kirk exercised his 1st Amendment right to use violent words as his weapons when he was “fighting”, and not use the traditional gun, knife, or bomb as his weapons did not make what Kirk was doing and saying nonviolent.
The 1st Amendment of the American Constitution makes all of what Charlie Kirk did and said legally correct. The fact that he chose to do his free speech “prove me wrong” “fighting” in the place where all ideas, speech, and philosophies should be welcomed, debated, and allowed to live or die based on logic and reasoning, America’s colleges and universities, and the fact he appropriately drew his last earthly breath on the battlefield of ideas, speech, and philosophies, made all of what Charlie Kirk said and did democracy correct. But none of this made the words Charlie Kirk would speak Kingian nonviolently correct. Kirk, like all of us, constantly used words of separation and violence to convey or advance his political ideology. Use of words of separation, therefore words of violence, is so pervasive among all Americans that we use them every day in the way we refer to ourselves, not realizing the subconscious seeds of violence and separation we are constantly implanting within ourselves.
Every day, Americans consciously and unconsciously engage in the use of words that constantly erect barriers of separation and violence between American citizens. The violence of separation occurs by the words Americans use to refer to themselves, e.g., Italian American, British American, Polish American, African American or Black American, White American, Jewish American, Islamic American, Christian American, etc. Putting emphasis consciously and subconsciously on what divides or distinguishes us culturally or racially from one another, first as opposed to American White, American Italian, American British, American Polish, American Black or American African, American Jew, American Islamic, American Christian, etc. Putting emphasis consciously and subconsciously first on the cultural and philosophical commonality that unites all Americans, American citizenship.
The words Kirk himself chose to describe what he was doing “the prove me wrong tour” was a dare or challenge, the words people chose to describe what Kirk was doing “fighting” and “debate” described a contest, all these words describe normal and potentially morally correct human behavior, but all the words also describe what Kingian nonviolence considers violence because all these words infer defeat of an opponent is the goal.
The words of Kingian Nonviolence state: “Nonviolence seeks friendship and understanding with the opponent. Nonviolence does not seek to defeat the opponent. Nonviolence is directed against evil systems, forces, oppressive policies, unjust acts, but not against persons. Through reasoned compromise, both sides resolve the injustice with a plan of action. Each act of reconciliation is one step closer to the ‘Beloved Community”.
The Prove Me Wrong tour, in Dr. King’s nonviolent words, would have been billed as the Please Come Hear What I Have to Say and In Return I Will Listen to What You Have to Say tour. There’s evidence that Kirk’s heart was nonviolent, which is why he could use words of nonviolence and unity as well as he used words of violence and separation. An example of his ability to speak nonviolently was the last words Kirk used to engage with a known adversary; his words were not in the “prove me wrong” challenge to defeat the opponent spirit, they were in the Kingian Nonviolent let’s engage in a conversation where we listen to each other’s opposite perspective, spirit. The day before Kirk was assassinated, he sent a direct message on X to his opponent, Van Jones. His nonviolent invitation to engage with Van was:
“Hey, Van, I mean it, I’d love to have you on my show to have a respectful conversation about crime and race. I would be a gentleman, as I know you would be as well. We can disagree about the issues agreeably”.
Kirk’s faith in Christianity was so strong, his political belief in Christian nationalism and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory was so strong, and his intellect about his political beliefs was so strong, that it endowed him with something most people don’t have: an immunity from escalating his verbal violence to physical violence. Kirk’s Christian faith, his political beliefs, and his intellect were so strong that he was invulnerable to verbal attack; you simply could not wound or hurt Kirk with words, no matter how violent the words you confronted him with were.
For the vast majority of human beings on planet earth, the old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a fantasy!!! If someone says something violent that hurts or offends a person, the offended or hurt person usually feels the need to respond with something that offends or hurts the person who offended or hurt them, but unfortunately, using violent words to respond to violent words is like using the drug fentanyl. A person wounded or hurt by violent words can get some relief or sense of retaliation initially by responding with violent words, but like fentanyl, the more a person has to use verbal violence retaliation to heal verbal violence wounds or hurt, the more a person has to escalate the level of their verbal violence to get retaliation relief. Until eventually violent words no longer give the emotional retaliation relief the person needs, and that’s when, God forbid, the person feels they need to escalate their verbal violence retaliation to physical violence retaliation in order to heal their wound or hurt with retaliation.
This is what killed Charlie Kirk: verbal violence escalated to physical violence under the guise of free speech. This is why Kingian Nonviolence diverges slightly from the principle of free speech. Because, as Dr. King constantly reminded America, “violence begets violence”, so according to Kingian Nonviolence, your right to speak violence or hate is one you should avoid exercising. The sick assassin who murdered Kirk, pretty much admitted that it was verbal violence escalating to physical assassination violence that killed Kirk, when he responded to his live-in lover’s question as to why he assassinated Kirk, by saying, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out”.
In other words, the assassin was saying that because Charlie Kirk was so strong in his faith, so strong in his commitment to his political beliefs, and had such a strong intellect about his political beliefs that it wounded the assassin, and so the assassin didn’t have words sufficient enough to wound or hurt Kirk back. Therefore, in order to feel a sense of retaliation for the hurt Kirk’s words had inflicted on him, the assassin felt he needed to escalate Kirk’s verbal violence to the assassin’s physical violence, by stealing his grandfather’s rifle and physically shooting Charlie Kirk dead. The assassin, like most people and unlike Charlie Kirk, didn’t have immunity from his verbal violence escalating to his physical violence; it’s no excuse or justification, just a factual explanation of what truly killed Charlie Kirk.
Blaming Charlie Kirk’s assassination on political violence lets the true culprit, which is the physical violence that grows from the seeds of free speech verbal violence that are planted every day, by what and the way Americans communicate to their fellow Americans, and by what and the way American institutions communicate to their fellow American institutions, off the hook. The American environment is determined by the spirit that exists within the American environment, and what spirit exists within the American environment is determined by the words spoken in the American environment. That’s why Kingian Nonviolence dictates that while words of violence can be used to describe facts about objects or subjects, words of violence should never be spoken to describe or to address a fellow human being.
An environment where people view each other and interact with each other as adversaries or opponents can always escalate to physical violence. A Kingian nonviolent environment where people view each other and interact with each other as contemporaries or as components can never escalate to physical violence. The only way to prevent violent words or any type of physical or non-physical competitive defeat your opponent violence from escalating to destruction or death, the violence must be strictly controlled. For true debates, that means rules, established procedures on what, when, and how debaters speak, and judges to enforce the rules and procedures. For sports competitions, that means rules, umpires, or referees. Otherwise, people become vulnerable to the temptation of escalating the violence to defeat the opponent.
Apparently, the NFL recognizes the importance of controlling violence in its football environment and how not controlling it can promote violence in the American environment. In last Sunday night’s prime-time football game of the New York Giants v Kansas City Chiefs, a Chiefs running back was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after he scored a touchdown, and warned about being ejected from the game, because as part of his touchdown celebration, he made a gesture with his hand that imitated slashing his throat with a knife.
Beyond the shadow of doubt, the bold and beautiful wife of Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk, demonstrated in her Charlie Kirk eulogy remarks that she understands the ramifications of verbal violence. But what Erika Kirk also displayed was a true strength and commitment that I know when I see it because I have lived it. One Sunday, shortly after 12 noon at the age of 12, I, along with my 13-year-old cousin, Dexter Scott King, the youngest son of Dr. King, accompanied our Grandfather, the father of Dr. King, Rev Martin Luther King Sr., aka “Daddy King”, to the Police detention section of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Ga. Being detained there was the assassin who had shot and killed my grandfather’s wife, me, and Dexter’s grandmother, Alberta Williams King, earlier that Sunday morning, while she sat at the organ playing the Lord’s Prayer during service at our family place of worship, Ebenezer Baptist Church.
My grandfather approached the assassin, saying and referring to him as “Son, why did you shoot my wife?” The assassin replied, “I came to shoot you, but I didn’t see you, so I shot your wife instead”. My grandfather replied, referring to him again as “Son, I will pray for you,” and all 3 of us turned and walked away. The assassin was tried in a court of law, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. In accordance with our ironclad commitment to Kingian Nonviolence, my family used our resources to successfully have the assassin’s death sentence changed to life in prison, where he eventually died of cancer.
In her eulogy remarks, Erika Kirk attributed the strength she summoned to speak nonviolence, when referring to the assassin who took Charlie away from her and their 2 children, to her Christian faith. But Erika Kirk’s words, “That young man, I forgive him” not only demonstrated her nonviolent strength to forgive, by referring to the assassin as “that young man” instead of denigrating him with a violent label, she demonstrated she has a nonviolent heart that won’t allow her pain, misery, and hurt to ever prevent her from acknowledging the humanity of a fellow human being, even if that human being has murdered her love one in cold blood!!!
I saw familiar strength and truth in Erika Kirk when she uttered those nonviolent forgiveness words, and the sign of true forgiveness by one in Erika Kirk’s circumstances is a willingness to bless the assassin of their loved one, receiving a life sentence instead of a death sentence.
Since I believe Erika Kirk is truthful in her declaration of forgiveness, since Old Testament Christianity validates eye for an eye revenge, since there were New Testament Christianity sects in America’s past that validated past American racial slavery, since many current Christians and many current Christian sects validate state-sponsored death executions, and since Kingian Nonviolence condemns all of these violent things that Christianity validated, when Erika Kirk dug deep and summoned the strength to respond to hate, violence, and murder with love, forgiveness, and nonviolence, God bless her, she might believe she was performing an act of her Christian faith, but in fact, love, and forgiveness what Erika Kirk performed was an ACT OF KINGIAN NONVIOLENCE. The cure America must take to prevent America from being consumed by the nightmare of violence that killed Charlie Kirk!!!