Black Internet Reacts After Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Shot Dead at Utah Rally

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was speaking at a Utah college on Wednesday (Sept. 10) when he was shot once in the neck. TMZ reports he has died. Graphic clips of the shooting made its way online of the husband and father of two falling over after a single shot rang out.

Kirk, an influential ally of President Donald Trump known for holding open-air debates on college campuses, was speaking at a live Q&A with students at Utah Valley University in Orem, a city about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. Spectators at the open-to-the-public event were stunned and audibly gasped before people began to flee the area.

Black Americans took to social media to speak out about Kirk’s shooting death, and the reaction is mixed considering Kirk’s political viewpoints: The conservative firebrand was outspoken against critical race theory and, in 2024, went on an anti-Martin Luther King Jr. rant. “MLK [Martin Luther King] was awful. He’s not a good person,” Kirk said at the AmericaFest convention that January. “He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe,” Kirk added at the time.

The NAACP and other civil rights organizations condemned the rhetoric they say sought to undermine Dr. King’s legacy. The New York Amsterdam News, a prominent Black-owned newspaper, called Kirk’s statement a “dastardly attack” on Dr. King in a published rebuke. Kirk has also said, “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

The Arlington Heights, IL., native often infuriated Black audiences with his viewpoints in recent years. Kirk, who at 18 years old co-founded Turning Point USA, a right-wing nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative principles, publicly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, called George Floyd a “scumbag” and has been accused of “race-baiting.”

Van Lathan tweeted that despite what he called Kirk’s “rhetoric” and “hatefulness,” he’s not “robbed of my compassion, that was awful, and we HAVE to try to be better.”

X user Dom Lucre said “he’s not a crying man,” but he “just can’t believe this.” He continued: “I can’t even look at the camera because I’m getting too emotional bro.” He also called Kirk an “American hero” and compared Kirk’s shooting death to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Disagreeing with someone’s views must never justify violence,” one person wrote next to a video of Kirk being wounded on Instagram. “We cannot allow a society where bullets replace dialogue or where violence becomes a response to political differences.”

A second person commented: “I wanna feel bad for them, but they don’t care about gun control.” While some people made light of the situation online, others swiftly condemned their comments, with one person calling them “disgraceful af.”

Another penned: “people praising him being shot should be put down like a dog, no matter his political views which aren’t even f*cking extreme you shouldn’t want a man who’s a good father and good overall person and is respectable to everyone, you shouldn’t want him dead because you don’t like him simply because of his political views.” One Instagram user wrote how they are praying “for the family yall wishing death on a man is crazy work I get we don’t like him but yall taking it too far.”

Just before the shooting, Kirk posted about the event on X, writing how the university is “FIRED UP and READY for the first stop back on the American Comeback Tour.”

Reports say the suspect is still at large. Video posted on social media appeared to show a white older man being detained by police on the ground afterward, but its unclear whether he is the suspected gunman.

Charlie Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika Frantzve, and their two children; a daughter named Sarah Rose, 4, and a two-year-old son. He was 31.

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