Conservative icon and activist Charlie Kirk joins a list of civil rights figures and politicians who were killed for speaking what they believe. Thousands have expressed their desire to pick up the baton and carry Kirk’s legacy forward. The question is this: Is it possible to fill the void left behind when someone like Charlie Kirk is assassinated?

In this episode, we look at the assassinations of two Civil Rights icons, Medgar Evars and Robert F. Kennedy, and ask the question, “What if?” How would things have been different if they had lived to continue their work?

Host: Alan
Research: Elena the Roots of Today Archivist
Music: Music by: Andrii Poradovskyi (lNPLUSMUSIC – Pixabay)

Further Reading

Medgar Evers

Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Evers-Williams, Myrlie, and Manning Marable. The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches. New York: Basic Civitas, 2005.

Payne, Charles. I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Robert F. Kennedy

Clarke, Thurston. The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America. New York: Henry Holt, 2008.

Tye, Larry. Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. New York: Random House, 2016.

Sabato, Larry J. The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.