Cleveland, Ohio
Fired Up in Cleveland
Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church · NAN Midwest Region
There are days you spend, and there are days you never forget. This past Tuesday in Cleveland was the second kind. It was a day the National Action Network brought the movement home, to the historic Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church, to say thank you, to organize, and to make one thing plain: NAN is ready to train.
The day carried NAN's AI Fluency Initiative to Ohio, and with Rev. Al Sharpton present, it was a great event. The message was simple. The same way we fight for the ballot, we will fight for a seat at the table of the technology shaping the future.
This rally was built for a specific reason. On August 28, thousands stood in Washington for the “Defend the Vote” March on Washington. But some of Cleveland's most faithful never made it. Buses fell through, and good people who wanted to be there were left behind. So NAN did the only thing that made sense. If they couldn't get to the march, we would bring the march to them.
Our President and Founder, Rev. Al Sharpton, came in person, not to be seen but to see the people who carry this movement in their own city. NAN came to thank the people of Cleveland, the ones who stood on the National Mall, and the ones who were ready to but couldn't get there. They showed up in spirit, and we were not about to let that go unrecognized. Community members and organizers filled the platform, including the men of Purpose Driven Men (PDM), who turned out in force.
But gratitude was only the beginning. The real message was about what comes next. NAN's Voter Brigades are ready to train, to put organizers on the ground in Cleveland and across the Midwest, to register voters block by block, and to make sure that the next time the movement calls, no one in this community gets left behind. The fight for the vote is not won in one march. It is won in the daily work of showing up, signing up, and turning out.
Rev. Sharpton reminded the room that Cleveland is no footnote in the civil rights story. It is a chapter. This is a city where the movement did not just pass through. It took root, organized, and changed the country.
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Cleveland again and again. He walked the neighborhoods, filled the churches, and threw the weight of his movement behind a voter registration drive that would change American history. That work helped elect Carl B. Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major American city. What was born in Cleveland proved a truth the movement has never forgotten: when Black people register and vote, power changes hands.
That is the line NAN traces from Dr. King's Cleveland to this pulpit today. The Voter Brigades pick up the exact work King did in these same streets: knocking doors, registering voters, and building the kind of turnout that decides who governs. From 1967 to now, the assignment has not changed, and neither has this city's willingness to answer it.
We are ready to train, to register, and to make sure no one in this community ever gets left behind again.
National Action Network · Voter Brigades
Cleveland was also a classroom. The gathering was an Ohio stop on NAN's AI Fluency Initiative, the program bringing our communities the basic information and the tools they need to understand and use artificial intelligence.
AI is already helping decide who gets hired, who gets a loan, and who gets heard. NAN refuses to let our communities land on the wrong side of that divide. The AI Fluency Initiative puts real knowledge in the hands of the people, so that the neighborhoods who built this country are not shut out of the economy it is building next. Faith, the vote, and now fluency in the tools of the future. That is the full assignment, and Cleveland answered the call.
None of this happens without the man who built the room. At the heart of the day was Bishop E. T. Caviness Sr., who has pastored Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church for 65 years and given so much of his life to faith, to civil rights, and to the Cleveland community.
To spend time with him is truly special. Bishop represents a generation of leadership that helped shape communities, open doors, and stand for justice, and he is still standing, still sharp, still leading.
At 98 years young, Bishop looks better than ever, and the history, wisdom and experience he carries are remarkable.
Rev. Al Sharpton · on Bishop E. T. Caviness Sr.
From the House of Justice to the pews of Cleveland, the message stays the same: faith and justice walk together, and the Black church remains the heartbeat of the movement.
We are grateful for the time, the conversation, and the opportunity to honor a man whose legacy continues to speak for itself.
Trouble with the player? Watch the interview on YouTube →
We are fired up in Cleveland. The work ahead is real, and the people who do it are ready. Days like this remind us why we march, why we organize, and why we keep coming home, and why the next step is to train, register, and turn out.
When Black people register and vote, power changes hands.
National Action Network