Stamps honoring Muhammad Ali, Phillis Wheatley unveiled in Hempstead

Black Americans continue to fight for freedom and equality in the Trump era, the Rev. Sedgwick Easley said Wednesday in a fiery speech at a Black History Month celebration in Hempstead where two U.S. postage stamps celebrating Black heritage were unveiled. 

The annual celebration, held at the Joysetta & Julius Pearse African American Museum of Nassau County in Hempstead Village, recognized historic icons Muhammad Ali and Phillis Wheatley. Large-scale stamps depicting both were set up on easels, and their accomplishments were celebrated in spoken word and song. 

Children from the Empire State After School Program performed a skit to honor Black American “firsts,” and students from Jackson Elementary School danced onstage. Sasha Brown, 9, a fourth-grader from Jackson, acting as Wheatley, introduced children who performed as notable local and national Black figures.

Easley, the keynote speaker, spoke of the challenges modern-day Black people in America continue to face, and he denounced President Donald Trump for his social media post of a racist video last week that drew condemnation across party lines for its depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama. 

 “Can you believe in 2026, we have a leader who would depict the first Black president and first lady on social media as apes?” Easley said. 

Later, he said, “Here we are in 2026, fighting against the rollback against diversity, equity and inclusion; fighting immigration when the nation is built on immigration; fighting against the whitewashing of Black history and the support of Black educational institutions.”

Easley, who is pastor at Union Baptist Church of Hempstead and executive assistant to Hempstead Village Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr., said people today are fighting to challenge voter suppression efforts and for criminal justice reform.

“It is 2026,” Easley said. “I need to remind you, because if you look at the news, you might think it's 1966.”

His speech received a standing ovation from the more than 250 attendees.

Remembering Ali, Wheatley

Those honored on the stamps came from vastly different chapters of America's past.

Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in 1942 in Kentucky, became one of the world’s most celebrated boxers, winning the world heavyweight championship title three times. He changed his name when he converted to Islam and became a controversial figure when he refused to be inducted into the Army to fight in Vietnam. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 and died in 2016.

Wheatley was a poet who wrote about spirituality and freedom before and after the American Revolution. Britannica.com calls her the “first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States.”

She was born in West Africa in 1753 and abducted as a girl by slave traders, according to Britannica.com. She was sold to Boston tailor John Wheatley and in his home she was educated, learning Greek and Latin,  before she  was freed in 1773. She died in 1784, but her poems influenced later abolitionists, according to Britannica.com.

Easley said the stamps send a message to the nation.

“When a nation places a face on a stamp, it is doing more than honoring a person,” he said. “It is signing their impact in humanity, sealing their legacy for years to come, and delivering their stories across generational lines.”

Praise for Empire program

Students performed as former President Obama, former Gov. David A. Paterson, former Hempstead Village Mayor James Garner, who was in attendance, and Hempstead Town Councilwoman Dorothy L. Goosby, who also sat in the audience.

The children praised the 8-year-old Empire State After School Program, which faces an end of its state funding this year unless it’s extended by Albany.

Barbara Powell, program coordinator of the Empire program, said afterward it serves about 1,000 children annually in Hempstead with a $1.4 million budget that provides education and cultural enrichment programs.

“We would hope to keep it forever because it's made that much of an impact on this district,” Powell said. “We've taken kids to the city, to the culture and the arts that they never experienced before. … It's essential that we keep it in our district.”