The first G chord of Amazing Grace rang out from Turning Point USC member Henry Barnes’ guitar as members of the USC community sang during a candlelight vigil for Charlie Kirk. Turning Point USA’s USC chapter raised $1,500 in one day to rent out the Tutor Campus Center Grand Ballroom Thursday evening to honor the late conservative activist. Amazing Grace was Kirk’s favorite song.
After Kirk was shot and killed while on tour at Utah Valley University on September 10, community members of the USC campus he visited just six months ago gathered to remember his impact.
“This event is a turning point,” Luca Yeghnazar, a member of the Turning Point USA chapter at USC, said in a speech.
Tiffany Veeder, an attendee and recent graduate of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, agreed that Kirk’s death made waves in conservative politics.
“I feel like being here makes a difference, and I’m kind of sick of being in the background. I don’t really feel like being silenced anymore.”
Veeder described herself as a moderate, but said that she’s shifted to the right since Kirk’s death. She sees this echoed in other moderates and cites the media’s coverage of Kirk’s death as the reason.
“I think right now there will be more of a blame game, and I honestly think the moderates are going to swing to one side or another … I know some Democrats that flipped to the Republican side, not in terms of their ballots, but in terms of what media they’re promoting and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into. This is not what I stand for,’” Veeder said.
She said that liberals in her social circles “celebrated his death” and that social media jumped to personal attacks, calling Kirk a “Nazi fascist.” She said conservatives “didn’t do enough to cut that down.”
Mark Lucas, who recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara after founding the TPUSA college chapter there, came to the vigil with his girlfriend, who is pursuing a master’s degree at USC. He agreed that the media misconstrued Kirk.
“This is the first big political assassination we’ve seen in a very long time. If you listen to what the media and other journalists have reported about Charlie Kirk, you’d think he’s much farther right than he actually was,” Lucas said. “He really was just a moderate.”
But Lucas disagrees with Veeder that the community is now picking between left and right.
“[Kirk’s assassination] was an effort to silence him, to do the ultimate form of cancel culture,” Lucas said. “But what I think has been very good is that [in the aftermath] there has been an even further push against that, to lean into the open debate setting, trying to have these conversations and not go to the ultimate extreme, which is assassinating someone.”
Others tried to move the event away from politics. TPUSA USC’s treasurer, Nathan Pham, said that based on social media, people got the idea that Kirk was “just a MAGA guy.”
“The impact Charlie had on my life was not one that was political,” Pham said, “but one that was deeply cultural and spiritual.”
Indeed, Kirk’s spirituality was a focus of the night. Vigil speakers read Psalm 33 in Kirk’s honor, quoted Bible verses throughout Turning Point members’ speeches, and many students during the open mic session cited their belief in God and asked people to turn to worship.
“‘If God is for you, who can be against you?’” Yeghnazar said, quoting Romans 8:31. “I know that I believe that, and that Charlie believed that.”
Yeghnazar said that the three pillars he would use to describe Charlie were a conviction of truth, courage in action and a commitment to the next generation.
“He poured every ounce of his time into students like you and me here at USC, reminding us that our voices matter and that we have the capability to change the future,” Yeghnazar said. “That is the reason we are all here at SC. It is to have a global impact … to use our voices and use what we learn for good.”
Veeder said that Kirk’s legacy will be one of productive debate.
“There were some things I disagreed with, but as a whole, he did it peacefully,” Veeder said. “He is one of the few people that I can honestly think of that does that and has a big outreach, especially to our youth.”
Lucas hopes that peaceful conversations continue.
“Charlie Kirk could have been any one of us … That assassination could have been at my school. Any one of the kids that were behind him could’ve been hit by a bullet or something like that. It’s really sad that it has gotten to this level, Lucas said. “And I really hope that the temperature gets turned down.”
This story was updated after publication to correct the spelling of Luca Yeghnazar’s name.