Around 40 students, faculty and community members mourned conservative debater Charlie Kirk at a Sunday vigil in front of the Washington Square Arch, where heated verbal altercations broke out between attendees and protesters.
The 8 p.m. vigil, organized by NYU’s chapter of the College Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom and Students Supporting Israel, commemorated Kirk — a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, and co-founder of Turning Point USA — who was shot on Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University. It was at least the second vigil held in Washington Square park since Kirk’s death, and came two days after one in Madison Square Park saw over 100 attendees.
The student organizers propped up a poster with images of Kirk and his family and presented several speakers, including Cordelia Davies, co-president of NYU’s YAF chapter, and Molly Siegel, secretary and PR chair of the chapter — as well as Ryan Leonard, president of NYU’s College Republicans.
“In our daily lives, we have to mask our beliefs a little just to fit in with people,” Leonard told WSN. “Charlie Kirk was the last place that we could go and feel comfortable and fight for what we thought was important. To see him murdered in a horrific way just really hit a lot of people really deeply.”
As attendees arrived, two men began shouting profanities and calling Kirk a “white supremacist,” before singing and playing guitar loudly next to the demonstration. Videos posted on Instagram depict them singing “Bella Ciao,” the anti-fascist song reportedly inscribed onto the rifle used by Kirk’s assassin.
A handful of protesters also arrived after the vigil began but were largely ignored by attendees, who held candles and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to drown out noise. Around 8:30 p.m., New York Police Department officers arrived to curb the escalating chaos.
In her speech, Siegel encouraged attendees to remain “committed to carry out this mission” — one she said Kirk championed — of “being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”
“Many of us here tonight have differing philosophies and convictions about the solutions to redeem this wounded world,” Siegel said. “Charlie Kirk wanted a country where these idiosyncrasies could coexist within the act of peaceful dialogue.”
The vigil follows a wave of memorials held at other universities across the nation and around the world to honor Kirk. Several others similarly derailed into chaos as protesters criticized Kirk’s political beliefs — including a Friday night memorial in Garibaldi Plaza, where an individual shouting “Free Palestine” was quickly cornered by police and droned out around two dozen attendees chanting “U.S.A.”
“I was very moved by the amount of people celebrating this barbaric assassination,” Siegel said. “This compelled me to speak today — I noticed the evil in the hearts of my close friends, of my family members, of people at this school and public figures.”
Contact Eva Mundo at [email protected]
