Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace's North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights will be in Miami as part of a broader tour of World Cup host cities to learn from local organizers about how preparations for the games are already impacting racialized working-class, migrant, and diaspora communities.

In Miami, those contradictions are especially sharp given the city's deep ties to Haiti and the Caribbean. Many in our communities understandably feel pride and excitement around the games and the visibility they bring, especially with Haiti's historic qualification, while at the same time the U.S. continues to militarize Haiti, restrict Haitian mobility, and deepen instability across the region.

We want to examine the local impacts already unfolding around the games including heightened policing and surveillance, lack of transparency around public safety and development planning, and the growing reliance on temporary and subcontracted labor tied to World Cup infrastructure and event preparation.

In Miami, these concerns do not emerge in a vacuum. Communities in Miami Gardens have already raised alarms around mega-events through lawsuits against Hard Rock Stadium and Formula 1 over the Miami Grand Prix's impact on environmental racism, noise pollution, and quality of life in working-class Black communities.

Our hope is to create a grounded political education and strategy space that centers Black working-class communities, labor concerns, diaspora realities, and community self-determination while connecting local struggles to broader questions of militarization, displacement, imperialism and state violence tied to the U.S. hosting this World Cup.