Woman of the Week: Oprah Winfrey

written by Rachel W.

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more in life there is to celebrate.”

Ask anyone: your neighbors, teachers, friends, younger siblings; chances are, they know who Oprah Winfrey is. Oprah was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, a small farming community that she left as a child when her family moved north. She grew up in a poor neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where her grandmother would often make her dresses out of potato sacks because they did not have the money to buy new clothes. At 12 years old, she was sent to Nashville to live with her father, but she moved back to Milwaukee less than a year later.

Oprah later revealed that during her childhood, she was sexually abused by multiple family members, prompting her to run away at the age of 13. She became pregnant at 14 but the baby was born prematurely and passed away shortly after birth. After returning home, she enrolled in a suburban high school, where her peers would taunt her for her economic status. Oprah began stealing money from her mom in hopes of being like her classmates. When her mother found out, she decided to send Oprah back to live with her father in Nashville. Due to her father’s strict guidance, she became a very popular and influential member of her class, becoming an honors student and joining her school’s speech team. She also received full scholarship to attend Tennessee State University. In college, she studied communication, working at a local radio station for her freshman and sophomore years.

After graduating from Tennessee State, she worked as a news anchor at a local news station in Nashville. In fact, she was the youngest news anchor at the station, and she was the first black female to work there! In 1976, she moved to Baltimore, Maryland to work at a news station there, where she met her best friend Gayle King (and they’re still friends today!). She stayed there until moving to Chicago in 1983. Taking over a low-rated morning talk show, she boosted ratings to take the top spot over Phil Donahue’s popular talk show Donahue. In 1986, the show was renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show, airing for the first time on September 8^th of that year.

The show was originally marketed as a gossipy talk show, but over the years it evolved to discuss social issues such as poverty and politics. Oprah also hosted several high-rated interviews, including her interview with Michael Jackson that is the most-watched interview in television history and the fourth most-watched overall event.

Oprah was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple. She has also contributed her voice to many animated movies including the Bee Movie and The Princess and the Frog. She has co-authored 5 books, published a magazine called O, The Oprah Magazine, and started a list on her website to help track down child molesters.

Oprah is an inspiration to people all over the globe for her work with poverty and sexual abuse. Growing up in an abusive situation motivated her to give back when she became famous and had the means to do so. She remains positive and advocates for victims of abuse, even though her past experiences might make this tough. Oprah also is a very big advocate for education, opening a school for girls in South Africa called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is the steppingstone to greatness.”