It's Black History Month and I have been pondering what I was going to do to honor it. At the beginning of the month I had the pleasure of hearing Bobby
Seale, who is the founder of the Black Panther Party, speak at Ohio State. It was very insightful to hear the story of how the Panther Party was started. I began thinking of who I thought was the most influential African-American in today's society. To some it may come as a surprise to who I choose and to some they will be disappointed. It really doesn't matter because it's my choice and if you don't agree we can just agree to disagree. The person who I feel is the most influential African-American is no other than Ms. Oprah Gail Winfrey!!!
Oprah is an Academy Award
nominated actress and a multiple Emmy Award winner for her successful talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Many of us came to know and love Oprah after seeing her Academy Award nominated performance in The Color Purple as Ms. Sofia. In my opinion, Oprah has been getting unfair treatment by the hip hop community. An example of this came to light when watching the
Grammy's on Sunday night. Rapper
Ludacris was giving his acceptance speech for Best Rap Album and he thanked Oprah. For those who have been living under a rock, know that
Ludacris and Oprah supposedly don't have the best relationship. They got into a heavy disagreement during a taping of her show. He has claimed to have been severely edited when he saw the actual episode on
TV. The dispute came due to Oprah suggesting that there should be no reason for anyone to use the word
Nigga or Nigger. She, of course, stated that she didn't feel it was appropriate and
Ludacris disagreed with her. The Hip Hop Community has unfairly targeted Ms. Winfrey by claiming that she is prejudice to rappers. She most recently came under fire, due to the school she is building in Africa. Why are all these people coming at Oprah, especially black people.
Oprah is the true
american dream. She was born in Mississippi and was very poor. I am sure she never imagined that she would end up where she is today. She has worked hard to build up the
reputation that she has in the business. The hip hop and black communities need to stop unfairly judging her and thank her for the many things she has done. Oprah is a tireless
philanthropist. In most disasters she is one of the first, if not the first, to respond. I remember watching her show around the time of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. I was amazed at what all she was doing to help those families there. You don't here the hip hop community thanking her for doing that. Oprah doesn't have to give her money to anyone, but she does so out the kindness of her heart. She has given millions of dollars to charities. Black people, instead of raising our children to be the next pro football or basketball star, how about you show them that are options are unlimited. We don't have to know how to throw or dribble a ball to do something with our lives. Oprah should be a role model to most women today. You never hear about her in a scandals and she is a great example for all.
I honestly look up to her. I don't know if I will ever see someone else in my lifetime that has done so much. She has been blessed and continues to pass her blessings to others. Below I am going to post an brief biography on Oprah. The information that I have comes from
Wikipedia.
Early lifeOprah Winfrey was born in
Kosciusko, Mississippi, to a
Baptist family. Her parents were unmarried teenagers. She was originally named
Oprah Gail Winfrey, after one of the people in the
Bible's Book of Ruth. Winfrey has said that because of problems spelling or pronouncing
Orpah, the "r" and the "p" were reversed.
[9][10] Her mother,
Vernita Lee, was a housemaid, and her father, Vernon Winfrey, was a coal miner and later worked as a barber before becoming a city councilman. Winfrey's father was in the Armed Forces when she was born. After her birth, Winfrey's mother travelled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her Grandma Hattie Mae. Winfrey's grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother would take a
switch and would hit her with it when she didn't do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.
[11]At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner city ghetto in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother. Winfrey has stated that she was
molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was 9.
Despite her dysfunctional home life, Winfrey skipped two of her earliest grades, became the teacher's pet, and by the time she was 13 received a scholarship to attend
Nicolet High School in the suburbs, known as
Glendale, Wisconsin. Although Winfrey was very popular, she couldn't afford to go out on the town as frequently as her better-off classmates. Like many teenagers at the end of the
1960s, Winfrey rebelled, ran away from home and ran the streets. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but lost the baby after birth.
[12] Also at that age, her frustrated mother sent her to live with her father in
Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted "Most Popular Girl", joined her high school speech team, and placed second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to
Tennessee State University, a
historically black institution, where she studied communication. At age 18, Winfrey won the
Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
Winfrey's boyfriend from high school, Anthony
Otey, would later recall what Winfrey was like during those early years:
…she knew what she wanted very early in life. She said she wanted to be a movie star. She wanted to be an actress. And I praise God that she's done that. She was willing to put aside a lot of other things. Back in the seventies, drugs had started entering the schools, and that kind of thing. We were involved in integration and those fights in those years. We were actively involved in that, but she knew what she wanted to do. She worked hard at it, and when her ship started to sail, she got aboard.
[13]Winfrey's grandmother has said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was "on stage". In her youth she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. But her true media career began at age 17, when Winfrey worked at a local radio station while attending Tennessee State University.
Working in local media, she was both the youngest
news anchor and the first black female news anchor at
Nashville's
WLAC-TV. She moved to
Baltimore's
WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of
WJZ's local
talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on
August 14,
1978. She also hosted the local version of
Dialing for Dollars there as well.Career and success
Television
In 1983, Winfrey relocated to
Chicago to host
WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk-show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on
January 2,
1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking
Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago. It was renamed
The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning
September 8,
1986, its first show was about marrying the right person.
[14] On her 20
th anniversary show, Oprah revealed that movie critic
Roger Ebert was the one who persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with
King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show,
At the Movies.
[58] Having surpassed
Donahue in the local market Winfrey quickly doubled his national audience, her show replacing his as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny.
Time magazine wrote, "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue...What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye...They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session."
Winfrey on the first national broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986.
TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular."
Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world."
Martha Bayles of
The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."
In the mid-1990s Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-orientated format, doing shows about heart disease in women, geopolitics with
Lisa Ling, spirituality and meditation, and gift-giving and home decorating shows. She often interviews celebrities on issues that directly involve them in some way, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse. In addition, she interviews ordinary people who have done extraordinary things or been involved in important current issues.
In 1993 Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview with
Michael Jackson which became the fourth most watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of one hundred million. Perhaps Winfrey's most famous recent show was the first episode of the nineteenth season of The Oprah Winfrey Show in the fall of 2004. During the show each member of the audience received a new
G6 sedan; the 276 cars were donated by
Pontiac as part of a
publicity stunt. The show received so much media attention that even the taxes on the cars became controversial.
During a lawsuit against Winfrey (see
Influence), she hired Dr.
Phil McGraw's company
Courtroom Sciences, Inc. to help her analyze and read the jury. Dr. Phil made such an impression on Winfrey that she invited him to appear on her show. He accepted the invitation and was a resounding success.
McGraw appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for several years before launching his own show,
Dr. Phil, in 2002, which was created by Winfrey's production company,
Harpo Productions in partnership with Paramount which produced the show.
Winfrey recently made a deal to extend her show until the 2010 – 2011 season, by which time it will have been on the air for twenty-five years. She plans to host 140 episodes per season, until her final season, when it will return to its current number, 130.
[15]The 2004
Nobel Peace Prize Concert was hosted by Oprah and
Tom Cruise. There were musical performances by
Cyndi Lauper,
Andrea Bocelli,
Joss Stone,
Chris Botti,
Diana Krall,
Tony Bennett and others. The concert was
broadcasted in the United States on Dec. 23, 2004 by
E!. An unofficial Winfrey fan-club also organized a petition drive in 2005 to nominate Oprah for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network
Oxygen. She is also the president of
Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards).
Film
Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in
The Color Purple.
In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in
Steven Spielberg's epic
film adaptation of
Alice Walker's
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Color Purple. She earned immediate acclaim as Sofia, the distraught housewife. The following year Winfrey was nominated for an
Academy Award for
Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to
Anjelica Huston.
The Color Purple has now been made into a Broadway musical and opened late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer.
In October 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film
Beloved, based upon
Toni Morrison's
Pulitzer Prize winning
novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of
slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Despite major advertising, including two episodes of her
talk show dedicated solely to the film, and moderate to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. Working with delicate subjects, Winfrey managed to keep the cast motivated and inspired. "Here we were working on this project with the heavy underbelly of political and social realism, and she managed to lighten things up," said costar
Thandie Newton. "I've worked with a lot of good actors, and I know Oprah hasn't made many films. I was stunned. She's a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."
[16]In 2005,
Harpo Productions released another film adaptation of a famous American novel,
Zora Neale Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The made-for-television film
Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a teleplay by
Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred
Halle Berry in the lead female role.
Books and magazines
Winfrey on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine.
Winfrey publishes two magazines:
O, The Oprah Magazine and
O at Home. She has co-authored five books; at the announcement of her future weight loss book (to be co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene), it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by former U.S. President
Bill Clinton for his autobiography
My Life.
[17] In 2002
Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry.
[18]Online
Oprah.com is a
website created by Winfrey's company to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity. Through Oprah.com Winfrey raised over three million dollars for Katrina victims
[19] and helped to capture four accused child predators. Oprah.com averages more than 100 million page views and more than three million users per month.[
citation needed]
Radio
On
February 9,
2006 it was announced that Winfrey signed a $55 million, three-year contract with
XM Satellite Radio to establish a new radio channel. The channel will be called Oprah & Friends and will feature popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus,
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene,
Dr. Robin Smith and
Marianne Williamson.
Oprah & Friends airs 24/7 on
XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract requires her to be on air 30 minutes a week, 39 weeks a year. The 30-minute weekly show will feature Winfrey with friend
Gayle King. Winfrey's audience is extremely loyal and XM hopes that the "Oprah Effect" can have the same effect on XM subscription sales that she does on the
New York Times Best Seller List, thanks to her book club. The channel broadcasted from a new studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters and went on the air at 11 a.m. ET, September 25, 2006 on XM Channel 156.
Future projects
In late 2006 Winfrey’s Harpo production and ABC revealed plans to bring two new reality TV shows to the air. One of the series is tentatively titled "Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give," and presents 10 people with large sums of money and resources and they must compete to find "the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others." The second show, tentatively titled "Your Money or Your Life," will unleash an "expert action team" every week to aid a family in overcoming a crisis through a "total money and life makeover."
[20]Winfrey will also voice a part in
Bee Movie coming out in
2007Labels: Culture
