On Sunday, October 25, 2026, Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), will deliver the Sunday sermon at Big Bethel A.M.E. Church on Auburn Avenue, then lead a nonpartisan Voter Brigade Rally and the NAN AI Fluency Initiative in the same sanctuary. The sermon begins at 10:00 AM, the rally at 12:30 PM, and the AI Fluency Class runs from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. All three are held at the church. Participants are asked to bring their own laptop if they have one.
The Sunday sermon delivered by Rev. Al Sharpton is followed by a nonpartisan Voter Brigade Rally helping Atlanta residents confirm their voter registration status, locate an advance voting site, and plan to vote before Georgia's advance voting period closes, and a hands-on AI Fluency Initiative class.
Big Bethel A.M.E. Church was organized in 1847 by enslaved congregants and is the oldest African American congregation in Atlanta. The church housed Gate City School, the first public school the city opened for Black children, and Morris Brown College was founded within its walls. Its steeple, and the “Jesus Saves” sign that sits atop it, has marked the district for generations.
The work comes in a year that has tested the right to vote across the country, following the United States Supreme Court's decision to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a ruling Rev. Sharpton has called “a bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement.” In August, NAN convened the March on Washington 2026: Defend the Vote in Washington, D.C., alongside Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King.
The AI Fluency Initiative is NAN's original program, built and led by the organization to ensure that communities of color are full participants in the artificial intelligence economy. Each training runs as a working session rather than a lecture, meeting participants wherever they are in their AI understanding. From those who have never used AI, to those who use it every day, NAN's Fluency Program sends each attendee home with skills, resources, and real work they created during the session. The program is platform-agnostic, teaching foundational AI fluency that participants can apply in their businesses, their community organizing, their houses of worship, and their homes. Susan Hearn, NAN's Lead AI Fluency Strategist, leads the Initiative.
The program launched earlier this year at NAN Newark Tech World in Newark, New Jersey. It traveled to Houston in September, where Rev. Sharpton led “AI and Our Future” as part of NAN's “Next Mile” series, to The Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, to Chicago's South Side, and to the Bethel Family Life Center in Tallahassee. In each city participants have ranged from first-time users to experienced practitioners, and have left equipped to direct these tools toward their own goals.
“Morris Brown College was founded inside this church, and before that this building held the first public school this city ever opened for Black children. Nobody handed our people either one of those. We built them in sanctuary because no one else would build them for us. On Sunday we are back in that same building teaching people how to operate AI, and the reason has not changed.”
Rev. Al Sharpton · Founder & President, National Action NetworkPlease note: Participants are asked to bring their own laptop to the AI Fluency Class if they have one. Anyone without a laptop is still welcome to attend.