Last night, the Knox County Commission generated plenty of headlines for the week ahead. Let me start with the Charlie Kirk resolution.

The three Democrats—Damon Rawls, Courtney Durrett, and Shane Jackson—voted against it. Republican Terry Hill passed. The remaining seven commissioners voted in favor.

The resolution honored Charlie Kirk’s life and was presented to the Turning Point USA chapter at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the organization Charlie Kirk founded at age 18. Kirk was assassinated on September 10, 2025, at just 31 years old.

The Democrats opposed it, citing Kirk’s divisiveness. Yet Kirk was about dialogue, not division. His death echoes the last Americans assassinated in a single year: 1968. I was two then, knowing it only through history books and old media accounts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

I’ve texted all four commissioners who opposed or abstained asking If this were 1968, would you have supported resolutions for King or Kennedy?

I know my answer—I would have, and I would have joined the seven commissioners in voting yes for the Charlie Kirk Resolution.