Policing Black Miami: Geographies of Rebellion and Carceral Development

Grounded in my hometown of Miami, Florida, this dissertation explores how US empire shapes urban spaces that results in Black displacement and erasure. This research begins in 1980, in the aftermath of what is known as the McDuffie Rebellion, when Black Miami took to the streets and rebelled in response to the acquittal of the police officers who murdered Arthur McDuffie. However, the Rebellion was much more than an uprising against the criminal legal system. Throughout this dissertation, I argue Miami’s evolution as a multicultural tourist paradise and global city comes with a cost: the policing and underdevelopment of Black neighborhoods in the city. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, familial history, and archival research, I examine how government officials address the issues of law enforcement and urban development and how it has impacted the neighborhoods that led the McDuffie Rebellion. This research builds on Black geographic thought, urban and domestic geopolitics, and critical readings of political economy to frame Miami as a US Southern city and as an extension of the Caribbean and Latin America strategically located for US imperial ambitions. More than 40 years since the Rebellion, this project serves as a warning of the growing and expanding carceral power that comes with urban growth.