From: L. Michael Hall
2025 Neurons #38
September 15, 2025
WHEN AN ASSASSINATION
CHANGES A NATION
I was only 18 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, a couple months later, I moved to Memphis to begin my schooling. There I began to see the after-effects of King’s Civil Rights Movement. Later I took a church in Mississippi and there I joined the AACP, I was the only white person. I tried to step up by preaching equality of all people. For that I was fired. My part was very tiny. It was the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., then his assassination that touched me and that began to change a nation. King had a dream and today we recognize as a fabulous and wonderful vision of humanity—that we see each other and treat each other, not by the color of our skin, but by the character of our heart.
This past Wednesday, the assassination of Charlie Kirk may turn out to be a similar national change. Charlie’s presentations and debates on college campuses was for the human rights of all people—the right of free speech, free debate, the right to thinking and arguing your case with others with respect and dignity. That was his theme and that is what got him murdered.
He lived what he preached. He debated with intelligence, good reason, common sense, and respect. When someone on the opposite side of a debate made a good point, he acknowledge it, “fair point, well stated.” He never operated from a win/lose perspective. It was always how can we together search for truth. For him the idea that “words are violence” was non-senses and at the heart of the problem of irrational political violence. Korzybski noted that words are but mental maps, symbols of something other than themselves. As symbols, whe word ‘cat’ cannot scratch you. The word ‘dog’ cannot bite you.
For Kirk, if there was still disagreement after the debate, he respected that. He knew that he could not ‘change’ someone mind. Only each of us can do that. But he could engage in a dialogue and a respectful conversation that would stimulate people to think.
That was his focus: getting people to think and stop parroting someone else’s PC (politically correct dogma). Those who hated him accused him of all kinds of things (being hateful, being a fascist, etc.) just as a previous generation accused Dr. King of terrible things (being a communist’ was the curse language of the 1960s).
Yet here’s the amazing thing with Kirk. When a person knows himself or herself and knows the truth about themselves, they aren’t disturbed by lies, slanders, false accusations, or insults. They dismiss them gently and graciously. In this they are un-insultable. That’s because they are highly focused. Dr. King was focused on the American Dream— “all are endowed by their creator with life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” and with “justice for all.” Kirk was also focused on the American Dream —the freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, etc. He wanted the right to disagree, to debate, and to talk out differences with respect and honor.
Will this recently tragic assassination change a nation? Only time will tell. That was true in 1968, only time would tell. Who would have guessed at the time of King’s assassination that years later we would have African American Senators, Congressmen, Judges, Governs, and a President?
Will this be a wake up call to think more respectfully and to end the polarized thinking that turns those who disagree into enemies or villains? Will this be a wake up call to cut out the over-generalization labeling, name-calling, and insulting just because someone doesn’t see things the same? Will those who have already used the murder as something to celebrate and cheer come to their senses and think humanly about a life lost, a husband and father taken?
With the assassination of Dr. King, a nation began to rally around his dream and over the years Civil Rights legislation was passed that created an equal playing field. I hope something similar will happen in the near future that will bring conflicting ideologies back to the conversation table. It is always a sad day for people when those who differ cannot sit down and talk. When they cannot even respectfully listen to each other. When they cannot think together.
Finally to end on a positive note. On Friday even the liberal New York Times which certainly did not agree with his opinions, did recognize the way he lived. They used this headline, “Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics the Right Way.”