Charlie Kirk: A Life of Faith, Freedom, and Courage - A Tribute by PragerU

[00:01] On September 10, 2025, an assassin took

[00:05] the life of Charlie Kirk, the

[00:07] 31-year-old founder and president of

[00:09] Turning Point USA. The outpouring of

[00:12] grief and anguish that followed had not

[00:14] been seen since the assassination of

[00:16] civil rights leader Reverend Martin

[00:18] Luther King Jr. 57 years earlier. On

[00:22] Sunday, September 21st, over 100,000

[00:25] people attended a memorial service in

[00:27] State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona.

[00:30] The president and vice president, almost

[00:32] the entire cabinet, major media figures

[00:35] and leading members of Congress

[00:37] attended. Tens of millions more watched

[00:39] the service on television or online. The

[00:42] world mourned. What was it about Charlie

[00:45] that brought so many together and shared

[00:47] sorrow? There are many answers of

[00:50] course, but if I had to offer one, it

[00:52] would be this. Charlie personified

[00:55] America's best possible future. Where he

[00:58] was going, the country was going. Tall,

[01:02] athletic, whip smart, Charlie embodied

[01:05] the nation he so articulately defended.

[01:08] People might not have consciously

[01:10] thought about this while he was alive,

[01:13] but they felt it after he was gone. You

[01:15] never know the height of a tree until it

[01:17] falls. More than that, as a devoted

[01:20] husband and a father to two small

[01:22] children and a man of unwavering

[01:25] Christian faith, he offered a model for

[01:27] young people, especially young men.

[01:30] Follow me, boys. My life can be your

[01:32] life, too. That sunlit future was

[01:35] instantly plunged into darkness when he

[01:38] was brutally murdered. Charles James

[01:40] Kirk was born on October 14th, 1993 in

[01:44] Arlington Heights, Illinois, a Chicago

[01:47] suburb. His father owned a small

[01:50] architectural firm and his mother worked

[01:52] in mental health. Both parents were

[01:54] conservative, but neither, as Charlie

[01:57] remembered, was especially vocal about

[01:59] it. Where Charlie's fascination with

[02:01] politics came from, he could never fully

[02:04] explain. But it was there certainly from

[02:06] high school on. More than a few times he

[02:09] clashed with his left-leaning teachers,

[02:11] a sign of things to come. For college,

[02:14] he had his heart set on West Point. But

[02:16] his application was not accepted. If not

[02:19] West Point, he decided no college at

[02:22] all. Ironically, no one would visit more

[02:24] college campuses than Charlie in later

[02:26] years. His fascination with academia was

[02:29] not with the credentials it pretended to

[02:31] confer, but what it was teaching. That

[02:33] America was a fundamentally bad place.

[02:36] Racist, imperialist, heartless. He

[02:39] didn't believe it. Where was there more

[02:41] opportunity than in America? Hard work,

[02:44] personal responsibility, perseverance.

[02:46] That's how you got ahead. His

[02:48] convictions were strengthened by two

[02:50] voices on radio, Rush Limba and Dennis

[02:53] Prager, both of whom would become his

[02:55] close friends. But how many 18-year-olds

[02:57] listen to AM talk radio? Almost none,

[03:00] except Charlie. Which got him thinking

[03:02] how to get the message out to his peers

[03:04] who didn't listen to talk radio and

[03:06] certainly weren't getting it from their

[03:08] high school or college. Thus, in June

[03:11] 2012, with some seed money from a local

[03:13] businessman, Bill Montgomery, Turning

[03:16] Point USA was born. The wild idea was

[03:19] that Charlie Kirk, a West Point reject,

[03:21] would evangelize free market capitalism

[03:24] and Judeo-Christian values to high

[03:26] school and college students. And that's

[03:28] in fact what happened. Charlie became an

[03:31] apostle of Americanism. I love America

[03:34] and my passion is working with students

[03:37] who want to hear about liberty and

[03:39] freedom, he wrote in his book, Campus

[03:41] Battlefield. It didn't hurt that he had

[03:44] an instinctive feel for how to generate

[03:45] attention. Creating viral slogans like

[03:48] big government sucks and staging come

[03:51] one come all debates on college campus.

[03:54] He made conservatism maybe for the first

[03:57] time ever cool. Conservative kids were

[04:00] the new rebels and Charlie was leading

[04:02] them to the ramparts. Wherever he went

[04:05] and he went everywhere he made an

[04:08] impression in his wake. a fresh high

[04:11] school or college chapter of TPUSA would

[04:13] invariably follow. By 2016, there were

[04:18] 1,000 of them. Later that year, Charlie

[04:20] placed a big bet on a fellow outsider, a

[04:23] celebrity businessman old enough to be

[04:26] his grandfather, Donald Trump. In Trump,

[04:29] Charlie saw the antidote to the

[04:31] bloodless presidential candidates he had

[04:33] grown up with. Trump was an entirely

[04:35] different beast, unapologetic, unafraid,

[04:38] with an unconditional love of America.

[04:41] Trump, to his credit, saw the same

[04:43] qualities in Charlie. With new

[04:45] confidence and new connections, Charlie

[04:47] grew TPUSA into the largest conservative

[04:50] college organization in the country,

[04:52] probably the world. Charlie was growing,

[04:55] too, in every way. His debate skills

[04:58] sharpened, his knowledge base widened,

[05:00] and most importantly, his faith

[05:03] strengthened. "Faith and freedom go hand

[05:05] in hand," he told his young audience. "A

[05:08] nation that loses its faith will

[05:10] inevitably lose its freedom. This was

[05:12] the American way. Leftism, the default

[05:15] college narrative, led nowhere except to

[05:18] despair and misery." In May 2021,

[05:22] Charlie married Erica Fran, a former

[05:25] Miss Arizona. Two children soon

[05:27] followed. Everything was falling into

[05:29] place. In 2024, Charlie threw himself

[05:32] into Donald Trump's re-election. Trump

[05:35] won, and this time with the popular

[05:37] vote. College students, always a

[05:39] Republican weakness, were now largely

[05:41] thanks to Charlie, a new source of GOP

[05:44] strength. Charlie didn't see it as a

[05:47] temporary swing. He saw it as a sea

[05:49] change. In fall 2025, he planned a new

[05:52] cross-country college debate tour, the

[05:55] biggest one yet. The first stop was Utah

[05:58] Valley University. And it was there that

[06:01] Charlie was cut down. Whereas Donald

[06:04] Trump had escaped an assassin's bullet

[06:06] 14 months before by turning his head at

[06:10] the perfect moment, Charlie met the

[06:12] bullet by turning into its path. On

[06:15] impact, his fate was sealed. And now we

[06:18] must face the question as to why Charlie

[06:20] was murdered. It wasn't because the

[06:22] assassin hated him. He didn't know

[06:25] Charlie. He hated what Charlie preached.

[06:28] That the way to a better life came with

[06:30] commitment to faith, family, and nation.

[06:33] The bedrock values espoused in the Old

[06:36] and New Testaments. That stood as a

[06:39] total rejection of the murderer's life.

[06:41] A life warped by anger and envy. The

[06:44] murderer didn't hate Charlie. He hated

[06:47] God. Only you can't kill God. You can

[06:50] only kill his representative. Charlie

[06:53] was murdered for his faith. In that

[06:54] sense, he is a martyr just as Peter and

[06:57] P were martyrs. Charlie sought a

[06:59] religious revival, a new great awakening

[07:02] for America. There have been many

[07:04] indications that his martyrdom may have

[07:06] inspired that revival, especially among

[07:09] young people. Church attendance has

[07:11] increased. Bible sales have surged. New

[07:14] TPUSA chapters are popping up

[07:16] everywhere. Exactly what Charlie's

[07:18] assassin most feared might well come to

[07:21] pass. Not only in spite of, but because

[07:24] of his act of pure evil. No one can

[07:28] predict the future, but if it turns out

[07:30] to be the bright one Charlie worked so

[07:33] hard to create, we will know who is

[07:36] responsible. a young man from Illinois

[07:39] who only wanted to do good and did. I'm

[07:43] Marissa Stright, CEO of Prager

[07:45] University.