ESPER at Anacostia Musium | esper-stamp-society

ESPER Day at Anacostia Community Museum

November 3, 2018

ESPER at the Anacostia Community Museum

On Saturday, November 3rd, Team ESPER implemented an exciting morning for children from Kipp, D.C. Promise Academy and their chaperones. The children found answers to philatelic trivia questions using the information found in the African American Travelling Stamp Exhibit. Children were assisted in reading comics taken from the annals of the Washington Post newspapers related to stamp collecting. Several students posed for pictures dressed as Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, and Bessie Smith. The main event was creating quilting squares to make a quilt inspired by the Gee’s Bend stamps. The quilt will be displayed in the museum. The special guest of the morning was our founder, Esper Hayes, who delivered a rousing motivational talk on taking pride in your heritage and achieving your goals.

Group picture with Dr. Hayes

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Group picture with Dr. Hayes

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Dr. Esper Hayes Photos

ESPER Day at Anacostia Activity Plan

Dr. Esper Hayes' speech to children

This is an impromptu charge Esper gave to the children. She was asked to say a few words, and she did it with ease. The children were in awe and very respectful.

“Jesse Owens was the first person to collect four gold medals in Germany and proving that no man is superior to the other. The dream he told me he wanted for young African Americans was to take pride in what you contribute to this world because you have helped to build this world -your generations before you - and you must continue. So I promised him I would do something. I’m a stamp collector so I started the ESPER Stamp Club, and I gave it my first name- Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections. And you have to keep that dream going because you are a part of this world and you have equal rights to be here. But what you do with your life is not how long you live it but how well you live it.

And ESPER has survived 30 years because the people have planted the seeds of success and highlighted to the world the achievements of Africans and African Americans. I leave it to you as my legacy for you to contribute to the world and do it with EXCELLENCE!”