Mel Reeves is a long-time human rights activist based in Min­neapo­lis who describes him­self as a writer, orga­niz­er and a ​“human being who stands for everybody’s rights.” When Super Bowl LII rolls into Min­neapo­lis on Feb­ru­ary 4, Reeves will be ready. He is part of a grass­roots nation­al group called Take a Knee Nation , ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing police bru­tal­i­ty and racism front and cen­ter. He has, there­fore, been part of plan­ning both a nation­al con­fer­ence and a protest ral­ly — to be held in Min­neapo­lis on the same week­end as the Nation­al Foot­ball League’s biggest par­ty of the year, the Super Bowl.

“The Super Bowl pro­vides a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to place the spot­light on the prob­lem of police vio­lence,” Reeves point­ed out in a recent phone inter­view, recall­ing how the 2017 NFL sea­son was shaped by con­tro­ver­sy over whether or not play­ers ​“mak­ing mil­lions of dol­lars,” as Don­ald Trump put it, have the right to take a knee in protest. The play­ers who did get down on one knee as the nation­al anthem was played, draw­ing both crit­i­cism and sup­port, were doing so for two main rea­sons: to call atten­tion to police vio­lence and to demon­strate their right to protest.

Reeves says that protest is what the nation­al Take a Knee con­fer­ence will be built around. The event will begin on Feb­ru­ary 3 at Minneapolis’s Augs­burg Col­lege and include pan­elists and pre­sen­ta­tions ded­i­cat­ed to the ​“inter­sec­tion of race and class,” along with the his­to­ry and cur­rent real­i­ty of police vio­lence. Among par­tic­i­pants will be fam­i­ly and friends of those recent­ly killed by police, includ­ing the sup­port­ers of three peo­ple who lived in Min­neso­ta — Jamar Clark, Phi­lan­do Castile and Jus­tine Damond — who were gunned down in sep­a­rate, high-pro­file incidents.

Local and nation­al youth who have tak­en a knee have also been invit­ed to the con­fer­ence, which will cul­mi­nate in a pre-Super Bowl protest ral­ly on Feb­ru­ary 4.

“We are try­ing to keep the issue of police vio­lence in the pub­lic eye,” Reeves notes. In con­trast, the area sur­round­ing Min­neapo­lis’ U.S. Bank Sta­di­um, where the Super Bowl will be played, has been turned into a hyper-mil­i­ta­rized zone. For weeks, local media out­lets have been report­ing that streets near the sta­di­um are clos­ing, while ​“bar­ri­ers and fences are going up.” There will be snipers on hand, and the area will be scrubbed of home­less peo­ple, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple reports. Gov­ern­ment offi­cials have even asked that the nation­al guard be deployed, a now-com­mon Super Bowl enhanced secu­ri­ty measure.

These kind of prepa­ra­tions, done on behalf of the ​“rul­ing class,” as Reeves puts it, haven’t gone over well with the oth­er local union and com­mu­ni­ty groups that are also plan­ning to protest the Super Bowl. A broad list of orga­ni­za­tions, from Native Lives Mat­ter to Women Against Mil­i­tary Mad­ness, has joined forces, call­ing itself the Super Bowl Anti-Racist and Anti-Cor­po­rate Coali­tion. This group has planned a ral­ly for Feb­ru­ary 4, to be held in the shad­ows of the hulk­ing, bil­lion-dol­lar U.S. Bank Sta­di­um — a new­ly built behe­moth that was con­tro­ver­sial­ly fund­ed, for the most part, with tax­pay­er money.

Using lan­guage that is decid­ed­ly not ​“Min­neso­ta Nice,” this Coali­tion has made its pur­pose clear. ​“On Feb­ru­ary 4, 2018,” an announce­ment from the group reads, ​“Min­neapo­lis will host a protest against racist police bru­tal­i­ty and the sell­out of our city to greedy NFL own­ers and cor­po­rate spon­sors.” There will be a ral­ly and a march that is, like Reeves’ Take a Knee event, designed to call atten­tion to the point that, ​“Dur­ing this year’s foot­ball sea­son, play­ers, and in some cas­es entire teams, have spo­ken out against racism, police bru­tal­i­ty, and white suprema­cist violence.”

Brad Sigal is the Sec­re­tary of AFSCME Local 3800, which rep­re­sents cler­i­cal work­ers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta. His union is part of the Super Bowl Anti-Racist and Anti-Cor­po­rate Coali­tion, and even though Sigal says he ​“loves foot­ball,” he will par­tic­i­pate in the planned protest for Super Bowl Sun­day. For Sigal, it’s about sol­i­dar­i­ty, since NFL play­ers are also part of a union, the NFL Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion. Many of the union­ized pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play­ers, like Col­in Kaeper­nick, have already tak­en a risk by ​“speak­ing out against racism, police bru­tal­i­ty and cor­po­rate greed,” Sigal says, not­ing that he wants to help make their voic­es heard.

“To me, that’s what being in a union is all about — join­ing togeth­er to con­front injus­tice, con­front the pow­er­ful, and change soci­ety for the bet­ter for the vast major­i­ty – the work­ing class,” Sigal insists.

The work­ing class, after all, will be doing much of the heavy lift­ing to make the Super Bowl a suc­cess in Min­neso­ta. The Cen­tro de Tra­b­jadores Unidos en Lucha, based in Min­neapo­lis and known local­ly by its ini­tials, CTUL, is also orga­niz­ing against the Super Bowl, but they are hop­ing to stave off an actu­al game-day protest by secur­ing some con­ces­sions for work­ers before the big event. As a work­ers’ advo­ca­cy group, CTUL has been orga­niz­ing low-wage work­ers of col­or for years and has some impor­tant vic­to­ries to show for it. Recent­ly, the group helped pass both a $15 per hour min­i­mum wage man­date and a Sick and Safe Time ordi­nance in Minneapolis.

Now, CTUL is pur­su­ing groups like the Min­neso­ta Cham­ber of Com­merce for fur­ther work­er pro­tec­tions in advance of the Super Bowl. Veron­i­ca Mendez Moore, co-direc­tor of CTUL, said her orga­ni­za­tion has been in con­ver­sa­tion with the Cham­ber of Com­merce to get them to agree to cre­ate a bond that will ensure low-wage work­ers get paid—even if their Super Bowl employ­ers try to stiff them. ​“We know wage theft occurs at these large sport­ing events,” Mendez Moore said, espe­cial­ly because so many ​“fly-by-night” groups pop up and then leave town with­out pay­ing workers.

CTUL, along with oth­er like-mind­ed union and com­mu­ni­ty groups, is intent on seiz­ing what they say is an unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light the ​“glar­ing dis­par­i­ty” rep­re­sent­ed by the Super Bowl. Cor­po­ra­tions and the wealthy think noth­ing of ​“invest­ing and mak­ing mil­lions” off the game and all of the events sur­round­ing it, Mendez Moore argues, while work­ing fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to strug­gle to make ends meet. These same cor­po­ra­tions often then turn around and block advance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for work­ers. The Min­neso­ta Cham­ber of Com­merce, for exam­ple, has filed law­suits against the city of Min­neapo­lis over both the min­i­mum wage increase and the new paid sick time ordinance.

One par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing exam­ple of this comes from the Franklin Street Bak­ery, locat­ed just a short dis­tance away from U.S. Bank Sta­di­um. Work­ers at the Franklin Street Bak­ery have been try­ing to union­ize for sev­en months, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Bak­ery Work­ers Local 22, accord­ing to a recent report. Yet employ­ees say the bakery’s own­ers, Wayne Kostros­ki and Mark Hau­gen, have blocked their attempts, and insists on pay­ing pover­ty wages that leave work­ers unable to afford health care or cov­er the cost of food for a month. In 2016, Kostros­ki and Hau­gen told the City Pages that the work­ers’ claims were ​“out­ra­geous.” (This labor-man­age­ment dis­pute has been going on since at least 2016, when work­ers’ sto­ries were doc­u­ment­ed in a video pro­duced by the AFL-CIO).

Here’s the iron­ic part: Kostros­ki is also the founder of the Taste of the NFL, described in a Labor Notes arti­cle as a star-stud­ded, ​“opu­lent fundrais­er” for local food banks that has been at every Super Bowl since 1992. This year, though, work­ers from his Franklin Street Bak­ery orga­nized their own ​“Taste of Jus­tice” in response, as a ​“stark con­trast” to Kostroski’s pub­lic persona.

Whether or not work­ers at the Franklin Street Bak­ery suc­ceed in their attempts to union­ize, they are part of a wider effort by unions and com­mu­ni­ty groups to pierce through the PR blitz sur­round­ing this year’s Super Bowl. News reports are cast­ing doubt on how much mon­ey the Super Bowl will actu­al­ly bring to the local econ­o­my, with Min­neso­ta Gov­er­nor Mark Dayton’s ini­tial rosy fore­cast of $500 mil­lion now seem­ing quite unlike­ly, thanks to real­i­ty checks that have emerged.

The Super Bowl Host Com­mit­tee, made up of large, wealthy cor­po­ra­tions like Eco­lab and U.S. Banks, has said that it wants to leave a ​“last­ing lega­cy” on Min­neso­ta, beyond the Feb­ru­ary 4 main event. On the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 3, this Com­mit­tee is a hold­ing a ​“Super Bowl Break­fast” at down­town Min­neapo­lis’ swanky Hilton Hotel. In response, groups like the Min­neso­ta Women’s March are ask­ing advo­cates for racial and eco­nom­ic jus­tice to gath­er out­side the Hilton in protest, in order to make this point: ​“If the Host Com­mit­tee real­ly wants to leave a long last­ing pos­i­tive lega­cy in our com­mu­ni­ties, they must invest in local pol­i­cy that sup­ports chil­dren and their families.”