Why Would Someone Kill Him?

My earliest memory takes place in a grocery store located on the south side of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I was looking east out the windows when one or more women began to scream. My mother scooped me up and walked quickly out the front door, and that’s where my earliest memory ends.

Later in my childhood, I shared that memory with my mother. She was stunned to learn that I had such a memory, having been two years, nine months old when it occurred. She confirmed those events and explained that she had put me in her car and then drove north through town toward the small duplex that my parents rented just uphill from the Hotel Colorado.

On our way home, we drove by the offices of the Glenwood Sage Newspaper, where my father worked as a reporter. Rather than stop at his office, we drove home, where Mom called Dad to ask if he had any further insight regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I don’t remember President Kennedy or other details of that day. No, my earliest memory was based on fear when that lady began to scream.

Years later, in 1968, I remember sitting with mom at our kitchen table. By then, she understood that my dyslexic brain learns voraciously when gathering information by seeing, hearing, and doing. I had heard a news report about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and I was trying to understand. I asked her, “Why would someone kill him?”

She carefully explained that it was probably because they disagreed with the words that he had spoken or the things that he believed. Given my dependency on and passion for the spoken word, I could not understand that motivation.

When I was bullied as a child, my mother encouraged me with the lesson that “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” She taught me that I had the ability to decide whether or not the words of others would offend me. That’s a lesson that doesn’t seem to be taught today.

On Thursday, September 10, 2025, we experienced another assassination because someone disagreed with the words and beliefs of Charlie Kirk.

What I miss most about being in the Colorado General Assembly has nothing to do with title or power. It isn’t about having an office in that beautiful Capitol Building or a parking space right outside its doors. No, what I miss most is having the opportunity to work through and solve complex problems with people who see the world differently than I do.

Not compromising by giving up half of what you do want in exchange for half of what you don’t want. No, what I mean is finding better ways to solve problems by finding the right words or numbers to insert into bills so that both sides can agree. That’s hard to do, but it’s beautiful to see when it happens.

Please use this opportunity to seek revival. No, I don’t mean spiritual revival, though if that happens for you as it did for me in 1992, then that would be wonderful, and I would be excited to see that happen.

No, what I mean is a revival of American Citizenship, a new embrace of civil discourse. Get out of your comfort zone. Put your cell phone away and go meet face-to-face with people who see the world in ways that are different from you. Don’t be offended by differences of opinion.

We have become hyper-tribal in our society, and I hope that we can use this tragic event to overcome that tribalism. Seek out fellow citizens of this great country, hear what they have to say, and don’t be offended. You don’t have to agree. Test all things, hold fast to what is good, what you know to be true.

But find ways to accept that not everyone is going to see things that way, and that’s okay. It’s what makes America strong. It’s what Charlie Kirk did.

One of the three things to which President Lincoln called us to highly resolve ourselves during his powerful speech at Gettysburg was that “The nation shall have a new birth of freedom.” Our nation was divided, and he pointed us toward unity.

Think American: that’s the revival that I hope to see.

Godspeed, Charlie Kirk.