Eradicate Hate Global Summit Returns to Pittsburgh, Bringing Global Fight Against Hate-Fueled Violence Home

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh will once again become the center of a global conversation about one of the most urgent challenges facing communities today when the 2026 Eradicate Hate Global Summit returns September 15–17.

Now in its sixth year, the Summit is the world’s most comprehensive multidisciplinary conference dedicated to preventing all forms of hate-fueled violence. This year’s theme, “Bridging the Gaps,” reflects the organization’s focus on bringing together people and institutions that too often work separately to confront hate and prevent violence.

The Summit comes with particular significance for Pittsburgh.

Eradicate Hate was born from tragedy in this community.

The organization was created in response to the October 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people were killed in an attack motivated by antisemitic and anti-immigrant hatred. The attack became the deadliest antisemitic event in U.S. history.

Rather than allow the tragedy to define the community solely as victims, organizers transformed their grief into a global effort to address the conditions that can lead to hate-fueled violence.

Six years later, that effort has grown into an international movement.

The Eradicate Hate Global Summit brings together survivors, families of victims, healthcare providers, law enforcement officials, policymakers, researchers, civil rights advocates, national security experts and other practitioners from around the world.

But organizers say the Summit is designed to be more than a conference.

Its distinguishing feature is its emphasis on turning conversation into action.

Throughout the year, multidisciplinary Working Groups collaborate across institutions, professions and borders to develop practical approaches to preventing hate-fueled violence. At the annual Summit, those groups share their progress and establish priorities for the year ahead.

The organization has also expanded beyond its annual gathering, developing year-round programs and resources intended to help communities and individuals play a role in prevention.

Since 2022, participation in the Global Summit has more than doubled. The 2025 Summit attracted 1,532 attendees, 194 speakers and 45 sessions, demonstrating the growing international demand for strategies to address hate and violence.

The 2026 Summit will feature keynote speakers whose experiences span civil rights, national security, leadership and lived experience.

They include:

• Dr. Alfred Garfinkle, a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and Honorary Consultant Adult Psychotherapist;
• Van Jones, civil rights advocate, political commentator and founder of Dream Machine Innovation Lab;
• Dr. Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and a national security expert; and
• Shari Redstone, founder of Redstone Leadership Forum and former chairwoman of Paramount Global, as well as former vice chair of CBS Corporation and Viacom.

Their participation underscores the Summit’s multidisciplinary approach: preventing hate-fueled violence requires perspectives from survivors, researchers, policymakers, community leaders and people working directly on prevention.

For Pittsburgh, the Summit represents something particularly important.

The city knows firsthand that hate-fueled violence is not an abstract national or international issue. The Tree of Life massacre permanently changed Pittsburgh and affected families, congregations, neighborhoods and communities throughout the region.

The response that followed also demonstrated the potential for a community to transform tragedy into action.

That is why the Summit’s presence in Pittsburgh matters.

The conversations taking place this week are about more than what happens in a conference room. They address questions communities everywhere are confronting: How do we recognize warning signs? How do we interrupt pathways to violence? How do we build stronger communities? How do we respond to hate before it becomes violence? And how do survivors and affected communities become part of developing the solutions?

For Black communities and other communities that have experienced hate, discrimination and targeted violence, these questions are especially relevant.

The fight against hate cannot be limited to one form of hatred or focused on one community. Eradicate Hate’s mission has expanded from its roots in combating antisemitism to addressing all forms of hate-fueled violence, bringing together people committed to preventing violence across communities.

Eradicate Hate has evolved from an all-volunteer effort into an independent 501(c)(3) charitable organization with a professional team dedicated to preventing hate-fueled violence.

Its work now includes more than a dozen Working Groups and four year-round programs, including the Prevention Practitioners Network and UP End Hate. The organization has also developed the Reach Out Resource Hub, designed to connect people at risk of committing an act of violence, their loved ones and survivors of hate-fueled attacks with resources and support.

That year-round approach is critical.

A conference can bring people together. The larger challenge is what happens after everyone goes home.

The goal of Eradicate Hate is to ensure that the ideas, relationships and strategies developed through the Summit continue producing measurable change throughout the year.

The 2026 Eradicate Hate Global Summit arrives at a time when communities across the country and around the world are grappling with increasing polarization, hateful rhetoric and acts of violence motivated by identity.

Pittsburgh has an opportunity to remind the world that communities affected by hate do not have to remain defined by tragedy.

They can become places where solutions are developed.

The Summit’s message—“Bridging the Gaps”—is ultimately about connection: connecting disciplines, communities, institutions and people with different experiences around a shared goal of preventing violence.

And there may be no more fitting place to have that conversation than Pittsburgh.

The 2026 Eradicate Hate Global Summit takes place September 15–17 in Pittsburgh, with options to participate in person or via livestream.

Registration is available for those who want to participate in the Summit and be part of the global conversation about preventing hate-fueled violence.