Oprah doubles down on the Emmett Till comparison

It’s been quite a controversial few days for Oprah Winfrey and considering she’s pushing a new movie it’s probably by design. She turned heads last week by comparing Trayvon Martin’s death to Emmett Till, two very very different killings. She doubled down on that story today - Glenn offered a stern rebuke and a recent killing ignored by the media that more closely resembles what happened to Emmett Till.

During an appearance on promoting her new movie, Oprah said, “ The truth of the matter is Emmett Till became a symbol for those times, as Trayvon Martin has become a symbol for this time."

Needless to say, Glenn felt like the comparison was way out of line, and he delivered a scathing monologue on the matter during radio.

" Here's what Oprah Winfrey doesn't understand. That is a made‑up symbol. All of the facts, all of the facts show that Trayvon Martin is not Emmett Till. All of the facts show that race played no role in this... at all."

"So only the people who are trying to hype their shows on MSNBC or to hype their position as a race‑baiter like Al Sharpton, only those who are trying to make sure that their policies are never questioned because they need the race card, and they actually believe the things that Jeremiah Wright said, like the president, and those who are trying to sell and hock their movie. Those people need to have Trayvon Martin as Emmett Till."

Glenn said that instead the icons of race today should be Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian.

"Those names most likely you've never even heard of but because of a listener of this program who called me and challenged me to tell the story, I did earlier this week on television. This will be a little easier because I don't have the pictures to show you on radio. Newsom was 23, former standout baseball player working as a carpenter. Christian was 21, student at the University of Tennessee. They had been dating for about two months, and on the night of January 6th, 2007, they planned to watch a movie at a friend's apartment. When Janet didn't show up the next day, concerned family reported them both missing. It turns out the couple had made it to dinner, but when they arrived to the apartment complex where Christian's best friend lived, they were carjacked by multiple assailants. What followed was one of the most heinous, gruesome, and senseless hate crimes ever. Christian Newsom's evening started with a wonderful date with his new girlfriend, and now here he was, just a few minutes later, gagged with a sock in his mouth. His ankles were bound with his own belt. His hands were tied behind his back, and his face was wrapped with a bandana. His head was covered with a sweatshirt tied around his neck and then he was violently raped with an object and beaten."

"I can only imagine the horror that Christopher experienced when he was forced to walk barefoot on the nearby railroad tracks. There he was shot in the neck and in the back. But the first shots didn't kill him. He fell to the ground where he laid paralyzed. That's after the rape. The assailants stood over him, placed a gun against his covered head and fired, killing him execution‑style. But then they wanted to make sure that they mutilated the body. So they poured gasoline on his body and set him ablaze."

"But... the boyfriend was actually the lucky one. Because they came back for her. Channon Christian, who was taken back to the home of the assailants, where she was forced into a back room of the house. She was hogtied with strips of fabric from a bedding set and for several hours she endured brutal sexual assaults, repeatedly raped in just about every possible way imaginable. This story is so much worse if you go out and actually seek the courtroom documents. But you don't need to know more than raped in every way possible. She was kicked and beaten with several objects, including a broken chair leg. She suffered major wounds to her genital area. She had two major blows to the head. She was still alive and still conscious. Can you imagine what she was thinking? Bleeding, she was finally dragged out of the back room and into the living room. But the assailants realized that they had left DNA on the victim. So they tried to cover their tracks by pouring bleach all over her. Then, realizing that they had left DNA inside of her, they poured bleach down her throat. She was still alive. They then wrapped her body in a black garbage bag, her head in a white plastic grocery bag. They then dumped her body in a garbage can in the kitchen of the house, all of this while she was still alive. This woman who started hours before, just going out to have dinner with her boyfriend and over to her friend's house to watch a movie, now was upside down in a garbage can, her throat burning from bleach, and rape, beaten within an inch of her life, suffocating in a garbage can."

"There was no Al Sharpton on this case. Much to my shame, there was not even a Glenn Beck on this case. This happened in 2007. I had never heard of this story until a listener phoned in last week. There was no one, and still there is no one calling for social justice on this case. The suspects had all been convicted but then the original judge was discovered to have a drug addiction, which got him disbarred, which meant that the dirtbag attorneys went back and said, 'You know what? We can open your case again, open the door for the killers to try to abuse the justice system.' But one have been repeatedly pursuing retrials and appeals"

"It wasn't just guys that did this. There was a girl involved as well. The family has been dragged into court and had to relive this since 2007 over and over and over again."

"The killers were four black men and one black woman. Why is it nobody talked about this case? Do we have to have an Al Sharpton? Do we have to have a Jesse Jackson? Do we actually have to go and protest? Do we have to go and strong‑arm? Do we have to go to the media companies and say, why aren't you doing this, and we'll boycott you if you don't report on this story? Why is it you're not reporting on this story? Is it because it doesn't fit? Is it because it doesn't work to your advantage? I thought we were a country about equal justice. I thought we were a country about being fair. I thought we were a country that was trying to do the right thing."

"We're not the country that's trying to do the right thing. We are not that country. But the good news is we are those people."

"Oprah Winfrey, you disgust me. As a woman who has gone through hell and back and made it, and pulled yourself out by the bootstraps. You made it. You made it. You grew up with hate from your own race, you grew up with rape in your own race and you pulled yourself out. And the American people, both black and white, yellow and red, it doesn't matter the color, they saw you make it! They saw you overcome everything that you had faced, and we celebrated that! So much so that you make $70 million a year! So much so you're the most famous and most accomplished black woman in the history of America! You have your own network because we celebrated that you made it. You disgust me. Why are you telling everybody else they can't make it? Why are you telling us that white people are the problem?"

"Oprah, I'm sorry to point out to you, people are the problem. Doesn't matter what color they come in. Scumbags come in all colors. The scumbags in the 1950s that did that to Emmett Till, I don't think there's a dark enough, hot enough hell for those people."

"You tell the Emmett Till story and it breaks your heart. You tell the Emmett Till story and the thought of his mother opening up that coffin and part of his head falling out because insult upon injury when they put him in, they put lye in there with him to destroy his body. You can't be a functioning human being and not feel that."

"But vengeance belongs to the Lord alone. Justice will never be done here on Earth. But we can strive for it. And I weep for my country because I know God is just. And I weep for my country because we are on the verge and the precipice of just an unbelievable bright dawn. The whole world is starting to understand not politics, not bankers, not power, not houses, not cars, not fame, not stuff, but love. The whole world is on the verge of understanding true freedom, and just leave me alone. Just leave me alone and let me worship God in my own understanding."

"There are bad guys out there, but race has nothing to do with it."

"Oprah, I choose to be the person that America thought you were. I choose to be the person that will overcome the bad things in my life. Nobody's going to tell me what I can and can't do and who I am. I know who I am, and I will not be beaten down by the system, and I will hold those people up that feel the same way, no matter what color. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. Give me the ones that you have told 'You'll never make it,' send them to me, the tempest tossed. Because I hold my lamp beside a golden door."

Civics isn’t optional—America's survival depends on it

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Every vote, jury duty, and act of engagement is civics in action, not theory. The republic survives only when citizens embrace responsibility.

I slept through high school civics class. I memorized the three branches of government, promptly forgot them, and never thought of that word again. Civics seemed abstract, disconnected from real life. And yet, it is critical to maintaining our republic.

Civics is not a class. It is a responsibility. A set of habits, disciplines, and values that make a country possible. Without it, no country survives.

We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Civics happens every time you speak freely, worship openly, question your government, serve on a jury, or cast a ballot. It’s not a theory or just another entry in a textbook. It’s action — the acts we perform every day to be a positive force in society.

Many of us recoil at “civic responsibility.” “I pay my taxes. I follow the law. I do my civic duty.” That’s not civics. That’s a scam, in my opinion.

Taking up the torch

The founders knew a republic could never run on autopilot. And yet, that’s exactly what we do now. We assume it will work, then complain when it doesn’t. Meanwhile, the people steering the country are driving it straight into a mountain — and they know it.

Our founders gave us tools: separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, elections. But they also warned us: It won’t work unless we are educated, engaged, and moral.

Are we educated, engaged, and moral? Most Americans cannot even define a republic, never mind “keep one,” as Benjamin Franklin urged us to do after the Constitutional Convention.

We fought and died for the republic. Gaining it was the easy part. Keeping it is hard. And keeping it is done through civics.

Start small and local

In our homes, civics means teaching our children the Constitution, our history, and that liberty is not license — it is the space to do what is right. In our communities, civics means volunteering, showing up, knowing your sheriff, attending school board meetings, and understanding the laws you live under. When necessary, it means challenging them.

How involved are you in your local community? Most people would admit: not really.

Civics is learned in practice. And it starts small. Be honest in your business dealings. Speak respectfully in disagreement. Vote in every election, not just the presidential ones. Model citizenship for your children. Liberty is passed down by teaching and example.

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We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Start with yourself. Study the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and state laws. Study, act, serve, question, and teach. Only then can we hope to save the republic. The next election will not fix us. The nation will rise or fall based on how each of us lives civics every day.

Civics isn’t a class. It’s the way we protect freedom, empower our communities, and pass down liberty to the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

'Rage against the dying of the light': Charlie Kirk lived that mandate

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Kirk’s tragic death challenges us to rise above fear and anger, to rebuild bridges where others build walls, and to fight for the America he believed in.

I’ve only felt this weight once before. It was 2001, just as my radio show was about to begin. The World Trade Center fell, and I was called to speak immediately. I spent the day and night by my bedside, praying for words that could meet the moment.

Yesterday, I found myself in the same position. September 11, 2025. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. A friend. A warrior for truth.

Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins.

Moments like this make words feel inadequate. Yet sometimes, words from another time speak directly to our own. In 1947, Dylan Thomas, watching his father slip toward death, penned lines that now resonate far beyond his own grief:

Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas was pleading for his father to resist the impending darkness of death. But those words have become a mandate for all of us: Do not surrender. Do not bow to shadows. Even when the battle feels unwinnable.

Charlie Kirk lived that mandate. He knew the cost of speaking unpopular truths. He knew the fury of those who sought to silence him. And yet he pressed on. In his life, he embodied a defiance rooted not in anger, but in principle.

Picking up his torch

Washington, Jefferson, Adams — our history was started by men who raged against an empire, knowing the gallows might await. Lincoln raged against slavery. Martin Luther King Jr. raged against segregation. Every generation faces a call to resist surrender.

It is our turn. Charlie’s violent death feels like a knockout punch. Yet if his life meant anything, it means this: Silence in the face of darkness is not an option.

He did not go gently. He spoke. He challenged. He stood. And now, the mantle falls to us. To me. To you. To every American.

We cannot drift into the shadows. We cannot sit quietly while freedom fades. This is our moment to rage — not with hatred, not with vengeance, but with courage. Rage against lies, against apathy, against the despair that tells us to do nothing. Because there is always something you can do.

Even small acts — defiance, faith, kindness — are light in the darkness. Reaching out to those who mourn. Speaking truth in a world drowning in deceit. These are the flames that hold back the night. Charlie carried that torch. He laid it down yesterday. It is ours to pick up.

The light may dim, but it always does before dawn. Commit today: I will not sleep as freedom fades. I will not retreat as darkness encroaches. I will not be silent as evil forces claim dominion. I have no king but Christ. And I know whom I serve, as did Charlie.

Two turning points, decades apart

On Wednesday, the world changed again. Two tragedies, separated by decades, bound by the same question: Who are we? Is this worth saving? What kind of people will we choose to be?

Imagine a world where more of us choose to be peacemakers. Not passive, not silent, but builders of bridges where others erect walls. Respect and listening transform even the bitterest of foes. Charlie Kirk embodied this principle.

He did not strike the weak; he challenged the powerful. He reached across divides of politics, culture, and faith. He changed hearts. He sparked healing. And healing is what our nation needs.

At the center of all this is one truth: Every person is a child of God, deserving of dignity. Change will not happen in Washington or on social media. It begins at home, where loneliness and isolation threaten our souls. Family is the antidote. Imperfect, yes — but still the strongest source of stability and meaning.

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Forgiveness, fidelity, faithfulness, and honor are not dusty words. They are the foundation of civilization. Strong families produce strong citizens. And today, Charlie’s family mourns. They must become our family too. We must stand as guardians of his legacy, shining examples of the courage he lived by.

A time for courage

I knew Charlie. I know how he would want us to respond: Multiply his courage. Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins. Out of darkness, great and glorious things will sprout — but we must be worthy of them.

Charlie Kirk lived defiantly. He stood in truth. He changed the world. And now, his torch is in our hands. Rage, not in violence, but in unwavering pursuit of truth and goodness. Rage against the dying of the light.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck is once again calling on his loyal listeners and viewers to come together and channel the same unity and purpose that defined the historic 9-12 Project. That movement, born in the wake of national challenges, brought millions together to revive core values of faith, hope, and charity.

Glenn created the original 9-12 Project in early 2009 to bring Americans back to where they were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those moments, we weren't Democrats and Republicans, conservative or liberal, Red States or Blue States, we were united as one, as America. The original 9-12 Project aimed to root America back in the founding principles of this country that united us during those darkest of days.

This new initiative draws directly from that legacy, focusing on supporting the family of Charlie Kirk in these dark days following his tragic murder.

The revival of the 9-12 Project aims to secure the long-term well-being of Charlie Kirk's wife and children. All donations will go straight to meeting their immediate and future needs. If the family deems the funds surplus to their requirements, Charlie's wife has the option to redirect them toward the vital work of Turning Point USA.

This campaign is more than just financial support—it's a profound gesture of appreciation for Kirk's tireless dedication to the cause of liberty. It embodies the unbreakable bond of our community, proving that when we stand united, we can make a real difference.
Glenn Beck invites you to join this effort. Show your solidarity by donating today and honoring Charlie Kirk and his family in this meaningful way.

You can learn more about the 9-12 Project and donate HERE

The critical difference: Rights from the Creator, not the state

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When politicians claim that rights flow from the state, they pave the way for tyranny.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) recently delivered a lecture that should alarm every American. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he argued that believing rights come from a Creator rather than government is the same belief held by Iran’s theocratic regime.

Kaine claimed that the principles underpinning Iran’s dictatorship — the same regime that persecutes Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and other minorities — are also the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

In America, rights belong to the individual. In Iran, rights serve the state.

That claim exposes either a profound misunderstanding or a reckless indifference to America’s founding. Rights do not come from government. They never did. They come from the Creator, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims without qualification. Jefferson didn’t hedge. Rights are unalienable — built into every human being.

This foundation stands worlds apart from Iran. Its leaders invoke God but grant rights only through clerical interpretation. Freedom of speech, property, religion, and even life itself depend on obedience to the ruling clerics. Step outside their dictates, and those so-called rights vanish.

This is not a trivial difference. It is the essence of liberty versus tyranny. In America, rights belong to the individual. The government’s role is to secure them, not define them. In Iran, rights serve the state. They empower rulers, not the people.

From Muhammad to Marx

The same confusion applies to Marxist regimes. The Soviet Union’s constitutions promised citizens rights — work, health care, education, freedom of speech — but always with fine print. If you spoke out against the party, those rights evaporated. If you practiced religion openly, you were charged with treason. Property and voting were allowed as long as they were filtered and controlled by the state — and could be revoked at any moment. Rights were conditional, granted through obedience.

Kaine seems to be advocating a similar approach — whether consciously or not. By claiming that natural rights are somehow comparable to sharia law, he ignores the critical distinction between inherent rights and conditional privileges. He dismisses the very principle that made America a beacon of freedom.

Jefferson and the founders understood this clearly. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they wrote. No government, no cleric, no king can revoke them. They exist by virtue of humanity itself. The government exists to protect them, not ration them.

This is not a theological quibble. It is the entire basis of our government. Confuse the source of rights, and tyranny hides behind piety or ideology. The people are disempowered. Clerics, bureaucrats, or politicians become arbiters of what rights citizens may enjoy.

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Gifts from God, not the state

Kaine’s statement reflects either a profound ignorance of this principle or an ideological bias that favors state power over individual liberty. Either way, Americans must recognize the danger. Understanding the origin of rights is not academic — it is the difference between freedom and submission, between the American experiment and theocratic or totalitarian rule.

Rights are not gifts from the state. They are gifts from God, secured by reason, protected by law, and defended by the people. Every American must understand this. Because when rights come from government instead of the Creator, freedom disappears.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.