Why owner Jerry Jones said Dallas Cowboys decided to have moment of silence for Charlie Kirk?

The Dallas Cowboys joined a host of NFL teams to hold a moment of silence for right wing influencer Charlie Kirk on Sunday.

Kirk, a conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, died last Wednesday after he was shot at an event at Utah Valley University. He was speaking to a large crowd at an outdoor “Prove Me Wrong” debate, where he invited students to challenge his political and cultural views. 

The NFL instructed the Green Bay Packers to do it before their victory over the Washington Commanders last Thursday.

The NFL left it up to the individual home teams to decide how they would handle it Sunday.

The Cowboys observed a moment of silence at AT&T Stadium before the National Anthem ahead of Sunday’s 40-37 overtime victory against New York Giants.

Owner Jerry Jones, who famously opposed protests against police brutality of people of color during the national anthem a few years back and threatened to fire his players if they participated, said the Cowboys decision to honor Kirk was about denouncing violence, not politics.

“Well, we just all abhor violence, and it’s impacting us all, and certainly we all stand together on any front relative to the threat of violence,” Jones said. “… I was involved, a young guy, but aware in the 60s when we had huge violence. Lost President (John) Kennedy, his brother, and many, many others (Robert Kennedy)…Martin Luther King. And so it’s something that we really all need to just be aware of, support our law enforcement, and do everything we can to keep the violence in check.”

Jones was pictured in a photo seemingly opposing racial integration at North Little Rock High School in 1957.

He later explained his actions as being a curious kid.

“I didn’t know at the time the monumental event, really, that was going on,” Jones said when asked about it in 2022.

He knew what he was doing on Sunday, comparing he violence of Kirk’s murder to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and King.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, in 1963 while riding in a motorcade with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Senator Robert Kennedy, a presidential candidate and winner of the Democratic Party primary, was assassinated in June of 1968.

Just a few months earlier in April of 1968, King, a civil rights activist, was gunned down while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Five NFL teams, the Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions, Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings Baltimore Ravens  did not hold a moment of silence for Kirk at their home games on Sunday.