Journalism of Courage
In an emotional speech at the memorial service and funeral for conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Arizona, his widow Erika Kirk paid tribute to the life and legacy of her late husband and pledged in front of over 63,000 crowd to keep his movement alive. Erika said more than anything, “Charlie wanted to do God’s will.”
The memorial service, which took place at State Farm Stadium outside Phoenix, saw a blend of politics and religion on Sunday as powerful voices of America gathered to bid adieu the 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated during an event at a Utah university on September 10.
Erika received a standing ovation from the crowd as she announced that she forgives the alleged person who killed her husband. “That man, that young man, I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and it is what Charlie would do,” Eriak said, quoting Jesus on the cross by saying: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Erika, in her speech, described the shock and anguish she felt when she saw her husband in the hospital after he was shot dead in Utah, but she added that she felt an overwhelming sense of comfort with the fact that Charlie did not suffer.
“I arrived at a Utah hospital to do the unthinkable: to look directly at my husband’s murdered body. I saw the wound that ended his life. I felt shock, I felt horror and a level of heartache that I didn’t even know existed,” Erika said.
Describing Charlie’s greatest cause, Erika noted that her husband’s greatest cause was the efforts to revive the American family under conservative Christian values. She said Charlie “died with incomplete work, but not with unfinished business”.
Erika said she was honoured to be named the CEO of Turning Point USA, the organization her husband co-founded and she vowed to add thousands of new chapters in it and announced that campus events, which Charlie had initiated, would continue.
(with inputs from CNN, The Guardian)
