My mother never listened to Charlie Kirk or watched his videos, but the day after his murder, she couldn’t stop crying. The video of his shooting is gruesome — a man engaging in conversation with another human before a bullet tore through his throat. The heaviness that descended on the nation Sept. 10 mourns something bigger than Kirk. It is grief for the present state of our country, and most of all, the shadow that has fallen over the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Kirk was a fighter for free speech, and his visits to college campuses, where he purposefully sought out people that disagreed with him to create an environment of discourse, expressed his faith in the First Amendment more than words ever could. Kirk’s death is the manifestation of violent, brutal suppression of free speech — murder can be justified because of beliefs a person held and shared.

“We are naturally talking beings, naturally believing beings, and the First Amendment protects our right to do both,” Charlie’s wife, Erika Kirk, said at his memorial service Sept. 21.

What happened to her husband crosses the lines of politics — it strikes at the essence of what makes us human and what makes us Americans. No matter one’s political affiliation, Kirk’s murder should make one fear what lies in our country’s future should we become silent witnesses to cancel culture and the idea that words are violence. A future in which Americans must watch what they say, in expression of our God-given rationality, for fear of personal injury, is no future at all.

In many ways, Kirk’s death was a turning point for American people, the jolt that they needed to realize what is at stake. The silencing of one voice awakened many more. Kirk may be gone, but everything he cherished remains alive, changing lives in a way that only his passing might have done. His sacrifice is our opportunity to renew our efforts in the fight for free speech.

Megan Li is a junior studying economics.