Addison McDowell

Conservative student groups at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro paid tribute to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk with a memorial service on Tuesday.

Kirk, who founded the campus group Talking Point USA, was shot and killed on Sept. 10 while speaking at an event in Utah.

Kirk’s death was mourned across the nation. On Sunday, Kirk was memorialized at an event which included remarks from President Donald Trump and Erika Kirk, Kirk’s widow and the new head of Turning Point.

More than 100 people gathered at a memorial at UNCG’s Elliott Center, organized by the Turning Point and College Republicans chapter, to hear speakers share their thoughts on Kirk’s legacy.

Kevin Six, the president of the Turning Point chapter, said Kirk was a champion for young, conservative people who were “often ostracized and silenced for our beliefs.”

“He knew that we didn’t always feel free to speak our beliefs, so he would come to where we are on our college campuses and do it for us,” Six said. “He gave us a voice when we were silenced, and whether you agreed with him or not, or even hated him or not, one thing is certain: Charlie Kirk created true spaces where anyone could speak freely and debate ideas.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Addison McDowell of North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District also spoke at the event.

McDowell described Kirk as a friend and encouraged the audience to be bold and follow Kirk’s example.

“Your words cannot be violent,” McDowell said. “Your words are your ideas. You’re free to have ideas. You’re free to share those ideas, and you should, but you have to make sure that you are in the arena like Charlie was every day.”

In an interview before his remarks, McDowell said he believes “it’s important that we call out this radical, leftist ideology that wants to kill people.”

He criticized the reaction of Democrats to Kirk’s assassination, pointing to a recent vote in the U.S. House in which 58 Democrats voted against a resolution honoring Kirk and 38 others voted present.

McDowell contrasted that with a resolution earlier this year in which all House Republicans voted for a resolution recognizing the shootings of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota.

While both resolutions include condemnations of political violence, the wording of the resolutions differed.

The resolution honoring Kirk was more laudatory, describing him as “a fierce defender of the American founding and its timeless principles of life, liberty, limited government and individual responsibility” who “personified the values of the First Amendment.”

In contrast, the resolution honoring the slain former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman described her as “a formidable public servant who served her community and the people of Minnesota with deep devotion, compassion and strength.”

McDowell added that he believes there is an imbalance in how Democrats and Republicans engage in discourse.

“What we see is Democrats in Congress, they call me a Nazi. They call me Hitler. They call me a fascist,” McDowell said. “We just call them stupid. We just challenge their ideas. They attack us personally, and it’s a warped worldview that we have to address and we have to call it out, and I think we’re doing that.”

Leaders of both the UNCG Turning Point and College GOP groups said their groups have roughly tripled in membership since Kirk’s assassination.

Christopher Boger, a vice president in both groups, said each organization now has around 30 members.

“I think that we’re in a pretty precarious situation politically, and people want to be able to safely have conversations and discourse, and it’s so vital, especially here on college campuses, to experience a full breadth of ideas and opinions,” Boger said. “We’re just really grateful to facilitate that kind of community for people here on campus.”

People at the event also spoke about Kirk’s impact on their lives.

Mattie Foshie, a UNCG freshman, said she came to the memorial “to support a God-centered man.”

Foshie said she discovered Kirk on TikTok when she was a freshman in high school.

The religious elements of Kirk’s message resonated with her.

“I think, just for me, he just preached the Bible, and I love that about him,” Foshie said. “I think that all of his facts and his statements were based on the Bible, and that’s super important to me and my family.”

Quinn Whittington, a UNCG alum who previously was part of the university’s Turning Point chapter, said Kirk “was a huge inspiration to me to just really be myself here on campus, not be scared to share my beliefs.”

“Even after his tragic passing, I’m still not scared, and Charlie would not want that,” Whittington said.

“He wants us students to be out, still doing what we’re doing, even alumni.”

The memorial event did attract a small group of protestors who were critical of Kirk.

Sophomore Ella Godwin, who held a sign that read “Your hate deserves no eulogy” and “No tears for Fascists!”, condemned Kirk and the memorial.

“I’m out here because I don’t think we should be mourning the death of a man who never sided with a single minority group in this country,” Godwin said. “I think he advocated for his own demise, and I think it’s disgusting that our mostly minority campus would be hosting a basically white supremacist memorial.”

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