Name: Miami Kingpins: The Real Scarfaces Film Screening
Start: 2026-02-12T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-02-12T21:30:00-05:00
Location: Barry University

Miami Kingpins: The Real Scarfaces Film Screening

Black Miami’s untold kingpin stories—beyond Scarface’s erasure. Join us for film, truth-telling, and a healing community dialogue.
About this Event

During Black History Month, Barry University, South Florida People of Color (SFPoC) and the Miami Dade branch of the NAACP invite students and community members to an immersive evening featuring Miami Kingpins: The Real Scarfaces, a documentary that uncovers the untold stories of Black Miami’s “kingpins” whose lives unfolded amid the racial violence, economic exclusion, and media stereotypes of 1980s–90s Miami. Rather than glamorizing the drug trade, the evening uses the film as a springboard to examine how racist policies, wealth extraction, and sensationalized coverage created the conditions for underground economies—while erasing the full humanity of Black communities from the popular narrative.

More than a crime story, Miami Kingpins centers the lived experiences, contradictions, and resilience of Black Miami residents navigating an unequal system that often criminalized survival while profiting from their culture. Through film clips and a facilitated dialogue, participants will explore how these histories still shape housing, policing, cultural representation, and opportunity in Miami today, and how communities are reclaiming their stories as acts of resistance and healing.

The evening includes:

A reception and mixer with individuals featured in the film, accompanied by a community-curated visual tribute to Black Miami in the 1980s through photographs, music, and artifacts.
A screening of selected episodes from the documentary series Miami Kingpins: The Real Scarfaces, which chronicles the rise and fall of several Black Miami kingpins and the broader community and cultural legacy they left behind.
A guided community dialogue and Q&A co-facilitated by South Florida People of Color and student leaders, inviting honest reflection on race, power, media, and the ongoing work of building a more just Miami.

This event is open to all students, educators, and community members interested in Black history, racial equity, media representation, and Miami’s cultural legacy.