Hundreds gathered on Friday to honor the life of Charlie Kirk, a political activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who was killed Sept. 10.
“Charlie wasn’t murdered. He was martyred,” Trahyger Carey, a sophomore majoring in industrial engineering and president of the Iowa State Turning Point USA Chapter, said.
“And when a martyr falls, it doesn’t end with a movement,” Carey said. “It just multiplies. So what do we do now? We recognize this ripple effect that Charlie Kirk had, and we aspire to keep it going. We cannot let this visual just be a memory. This is the turning point, the movement, the moment when we can turn our grief into strength.”
Ian Thompson, a student at Iowa Central Community College and faith leader for Turning Point USA, along with the Iowa State Chapter of the organization, joined forces to plan the vigil, which was held in front of Parks Library on campus.
“All of Wednesday evening, and all of Thursday, I was struggling, being like, I need to do something,” Thompson said. “Something needs to happen from this. Stuff has gone too far. I took a step of faith and I decided to reach out to different contacts I had around ISU and I made the flyer that a lot of people have seen and I sent it out in faith, thinking that it’s going to be a smaller thing… Then it blew up, I didn’t realize it would be an ember in a dry forest.”
While Thompson initially expected 50 people or fewer, another representative noted that their post about the vigil reached around 500,000 people, with the crowd ranging from students to families and residents from the Ames area.
During the program, Thompson led the group in song and prayer with an additional message from a Lifepointe Church and Chi Alpha leader, Alex Rosinger.
Those that attended held flashlights, phone lights, taper candles and scented candles throughout the messages and song celebrating Kirk’s life.
“My hope for it was that it was going to be a time for the community to come together to mourn the loss of a beloved figure who was not a political figure or anything, he was just a member of the community that was just sharing his free speech,” Thompson said. “And I was hoping that they could come to mourn for that, pray for his family and to see the community that they have around central Iowa.”
During his life, Kirk often intertwined political activism with his religious beliefs. Reflecting that approach, event leaders offered group prayers and encouraged moments of silent prayer throughout the gathering.
Many attendees could be seen holding Bibles, taking off their hats and closing their eyes as they reflected on the past week’s event.
Carey hopes the violence carried out against Kirk brings people together, as they did for this event.
“Violence only divides, and it did the opposite of what they intended,” Carey said. “We have to be careful, now’s not the time to go and think more extremely. Now’s the time to reflect and say, yes, open discussion is what we need; we need to talk to each other.”
Carey became the president of Turning Point’s ISU chapter over the summer after the club was left without leadership following the graduation of most of its members.
“There was probably a week where I was the only member in the club, and now we’ve grown, there’s over 110 people in our group,” Carey said.
Harper Gillespie, a senior majoring in biology at ISU, joined Turning Point a few days ago in the wake of Kirk’s death.
“I feel like I was bottling up a lot of the way I felt, especially on campus,” Gillespie said. “I was kind of afraid to express my opinions and my beliefs just because I feel like I would get shunned. Then, unfortunately, the circumstances of Charlie Kirk, I guess, just made me want to be stronger in the way I felt.”
Gillespie feels that people who share her political beliefs are more silent compared to their counterparts to avoid confrontation. She has enjoyed being part of Turning Point so far, being able to socialize with people who are “fired up” about the same things she is.
Gillespie felt the same about attending the vigil and admitted to shedding a few tears as the event commenced.
“It’s a beautiful vigil, completely gorgeous. I just found the Lord this year, and so being able to truly pray and pray with people who seriously want the best for everybody and just want a happy world and a happy place, it just meant so much to me,” Gillespie said.
Wade Wallace, an Ames resident and one of the only counter-protesters at the vigil, disagreed with the celebration of Kirk’s legacy and held a sign stating, “Charlie Kirk: misogynist, white supremacist, transphobe.”
“Given everything that we know about what Charlie Kirk said, not just what he believed in private, but publicly advocated for the propaganda he spread, all of it was vile, poisonous, and that’s why I’m here,” Wallace said.
For some, Kirk’s death has served as a call for unity and efforts to bridge the political divide. Wallace, however, maintains that political polarization is unavoidable.
“Polarization isn’t something we’re creating; it’s just a fact of life because they’re competing interests that are irreconcilable,” Wallace said. “We can pretend that those competing interests are reconcilable, but they’re not.”
Elizabeth Lumpa, a freshman in a LAS open option undergraduate undeclared major, disagrees with Wallace.
“I think it brought people together,” Lumpa said. “More people are going to church, I think more people are talking about it and even people, like liberals, who believe something completely different from Republicans, they’re still liberals that think that this was completely wrong and even if they completely disagree with everything Charlie Kirk ever said, they still believe that this was wrong.”
Member of the Iowa House of Representatives and gubernatorial candidate Eddie Andrews came to the event “as a person, not a representative,” to show his support for the students who organized the vigil. Andrews noted that political violence is never the answer.
“The celebration of anyone on any side of the aisle who was brutally murdered in a premeditated manner is abhorrent to celebrate… You can mourn, you can honor the life, celebrate the life of a person in a peaceful manner,” Andrews said.
Andrews also praised the work of the students who organized the vigil, and emphasized the need for people to come together and grieve a loss that to many felt incredibly personal.
“People need to heal, and this is part of the healing process, and it’s important to reflect and honor his life and honor the good things, the positive things that Charlie Kirk did,” Andrews said. “Whether or not you agreed with his politics, you have to admit, he invited debate. And, ironically, we need more of that.”
