The Groundbreaking Story of Oprah Winfrey

she's considered the queen of all media but it was a long and challenging road to the throne welcome to Ms mojo and today we're taking a look at the incredible true story of talk-show icon businesswoman philanthropist and media mogul Oprah Winfrey humble beginnings Oprah Gayle Winfrey was born on january 29th 1954 in Kosciusko Mississippi except technically her legal name was Orpah after a figure from the Bible unfortunately for young Orpah people struggled to pronounce her name often switching the R and P and so Orpah became Oprah what do you believe is true for you what do you believe is possible for you many of you have heard me share this story of growing up rural Mississippi obviously a black girl at the time we recall colored people and my grandmother was a maid that's all she ever knew the only real expectation she held for me was that I would one day become a maid and in her words have some good white folks her mother a housekeeper was only a teenager at the time of Oprah's birth and her father wasn't in the picture at the time Oprah's first years were spent in abject poverty and we're not just talking about living paycheck-to-paycheck I thought about my childhood now I've shared my childhood lots of people and as a child I was raised by my grandmother for the first six years and my grandmother used to whip me often but I would get beaten and then I was never allowed to have any emotion about it since I live with her grandmother until the age of six she often wore empty potato saxis tresses I remember the first night entering into that house and being told that I wouldn't be able to sleep with my mother and I wouldn't be able to sleep inside the house but there was a little 4ei porch before you actually got inside the house and I was put outside just to sleep there I later realizes because it was the color of my skin despite these hardships and the mockery that poverty brought her from her peers Oprah's early rural life also planted the seed of one of her greatest passions grandmother taught her to read before the age of three at the age of six Oprah moved north with her mother to Milwaukee it was a fundamentally different environment and her mother's parenting style was a drastic change from that of her strict but encouraging grandmother she was also briefly sent to live with her father in Nashville Tennessee as if ongoing poverty and an unstable family environment wasn't challenging enough Oprah was also the victim of both psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of extended family members and a family friend that was my biggest life secret and I lived in such fear of that secret coming out it was my great great life shame I thought oh my god I'm a national television personality if that ever came out oh my god people are gonna hate me they're gonna think this they're gonna think that and when that came out by a member of my family who did it to deceive me it was the greatest relief of my life and I found out that the people who loved me still loved me by the age of 13 unable to bear the circumstances of her home life any longer she ran away from home and as I sat there thinking I don't belong in this place for bad girls because I'm not a bad girl a woman comes out and says to myself and to my mother I'm sorry miss Lee but there's not enough room on our docket for your daughter you'll have to come back in two weeks there isn't enough room for her here by the age of 14 she'd become pregnant prematurely giving birth to a son who died shortly afterwards after I gave birth at 14 years old to a child that I never even knew how this even happened to me at the time when that child died my father said to me this is your second chance this is your opportunity to seize this moment and make something of your life only a decade and a half old Oprah had already faced enough hardships to break the average person to achieve what she has from such a disadvantaged life of trauma might have seemed impossible but opportunity was just around the corner and I took that chance and understood for myself even though I didn't have the words to articulate it that now I know better so I can do better a star pupil navigating adolescence when Oprah was enrolled at Lincoln High School in Milwaukee she quickly distinguished herself with her hard work and obvious intelligence she was placed in the Upward Bound program and soon received a transfer to a prestigious High School in an affluent neighborhood Oprah seemed to be on the right track but he or she began to crack under the social pressure and the influence of her privileged peers but I have always had the deep understanding for myself that if anything was going to move forward in my life that I was going to have to be responsible for making that happen she began acting out and so she was once again sent to live with her father in Nashville this time for good like her maternal grandmother however her father proved to be a strict but encouraging guardian under his influence Oprah's natural tendency towards performing well in school took over she soon found herself on the honor student list excelling in extracurriculars and by the time she graduated she had secured a scholarship using her excellent oratory skills this is what I know from doing 25 years and thousands and thousands of interviews on The Oprah Show it does not matter where you come from I have seen people come out of the desert walk across the desert being born in the most dire of circumstances doesn't matter what your momma did whether she did or had a PhD or no D what matters is now this moment and your willingness to see this moment for what it is accept it forgive the past take responsibility and move forward starting from the bottom local news it was during Oprah's final year of high school that she got her first taste of working in media after winning a beauty pageant she secured part-time work as a news anchor she was just 17 at the time but she would continue to anchor at WBAL as she continued her education at Tennessee State University where she studied communications altogether she would work at W vol for a total of three years soon she was hired at WLAC TV where she was the youngest anchor in that station's history as well as their first black anchor in her short life up to this point she had already gone from potato sacks to breaking ground for women of color after graduation Oprah moved to Baltimore's wjz-tv in 1976 well Richard nothing's going to keep students away from Chicago's Providence st. Mel high school today the students at the old black inner city school had been told their school would close because the Chicago archdiocese had run out of money he or she initially served as co-anchor for the six o'clock news before losing her seat and being relegated to support tasks but sometimes you got to take a step backwards to take two steps forward she was asked to join Richard share on the talk show people are talking in 1978 it was Oprah's first foray into the format and it would forever change her life so nice Oprah was not feeling well bastard it's nice to have you under the weather yes nice to have you with us today the queen of Chicago and the color purple after having cut her teeth back in Baltimore Winfrey moved to the Windy City though it may have seemed like a big step forward for the star in the making Oprah had her work cut out for her the morning talk show that she was taking over and Chicago was struggling to attract viewers I got the job and to my surprise the show was a bit of a disaster nothing worked everything fell apart I'm cooking I don't cook I certainly didn't cook then and certainly don't cook on a hot plate on TV it was here that Oprah first really showcased her star power in a matter of mere months Winfrey took am Chicago from a sinking ship to wls-tv flagship morning show and the highest-rated talk show in all of Chicago it was who was a total mess but I got through it I got through it I do it and came off thinking you know I should have asked them what the show was about it was during her time on AM Chicago that Oprah was approached to star in the film the color purple producer and music legend Quincy Jones had seen around the program and thought that she would be a good fit for one of his projects the film in question was the coming-of-age period drama the color purple directed by Steven Spielberg it was Oprah's film debut she had previously only ever acted once on the stage in a one-woman play she performed back in 1978 despite her relative inexperience Winfrey turned in a star-making performance one that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress I had to fight my brother's child ain't safe in a family means the film was a huge success both with critics and at the box office and Oprah star power significantly increased [Music] from the Oprah Winfrey Show to an empire Oprah's first episode hosting and Chicago aired in January of 1984 flash-forward to September of 1986 and the program had been extended to a full hour rechristened the Oprah Winfrey Show signed to a record-breaking syndication deal with King World and was being broadcast across the nation and just like that Oprah Winfrey became the top daytime talk-show host in the country for many that'd be enough but part of what makes Oprah Winfrey such a force to be reckoned with and the reason that her brand has continued to expand is that she refuses to stop moving and so in 1986 Oprah founded her own production company Harpo Inc which she used as a place to produce stories she thought were worth telling and that is why I wanted to give you this was just the start of what would grow to become one of the most distinct media empires and successful personality driven brands in the history of entertainment Oprah's Book Club Oprah's Favorite Things o magazine co-founding the oxygen network over the years Oprah has continuously found new ways to connect with our fans the TV you call I get on the phone you say I have a black eye I said oh my god what happened you said I passed the TV in you look ridiculous The Oprah Winfrey Show ran from 1986 to 2011 during that time the show produced four thousand five hundred and sixty one episodes it also took home 47 Daytime Emmys all before the year 2000 when Oprah opted to forego submitting the series for Emmy consideration TV Guide lists it among its 50 greatest TV shows of all time and today it remains the single highest-rated daytime talk show in the history of American television after 25 seasons on the air you'd think that Oprah might want to retire but instead 2011 was the year that she found an own her very own specialty television network it got off to a bit of a slow start but by 2015 the channel was being broadcast into an estimated eighty one point nine million households in America I'm excited to give you an update about our own YouTube channel so here's just a taste of some of what you'll see because when Oprah faces adversity she adapts overcomes and finds a way to succeed a philanthropist first it was ten years ago this month when Oprah opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls Olek this is a supreme moment of destiny for me I've been coming to this day my entire life somehow while accomplishing everything she has Oprah has also managed to give back in a major way by 2004 she already ranked among the 50 most generous Americans flash forward to 2012 and she donated an estimated 400 million dollars to at occasional programs scholarships museums disaster relief following Hurricane Katrina Oprah has been directly involved with all of the above I can't even really imagine what it's going to feel like it is just going to be great I want you to meet a fellow who raised $30,000 in 30 days all by himself to pay for our Oprah angel house in Baltimore through Oprah's Angel Network which operated from 1998 to 2010 Oprah accepted donations and redistributed them to nonprofits and charitable efforts 100 percent of donated funds went to these organizations with Oprah covering the oen operational costs I wanted to help girls who were like me girls who really wanted it they could they could see the possibility for themselves if only you take that girl you put her in school you give her an opportunity to walk through the door of higher education and we have what is happened here with these old light girls in South Africa she operates a boarding school the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls South Africa where disadvantaged young women are given the skills and opportunities to change not just their own lives but the world how do you thank you good I am Who I am today because of her I feel as each one graduates I think all right that phase is done and well done well well well done before we continue be sure to subscribe to our Channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications the future over the course of her career Oprah has changed the face of popular media becoming an empowering icon for multiple generations in the process but she's not finished yet each of us comes to this earth with a deep potential that earns to be fulfilled with a love to be set free we all crave connection we search for common ground Oprah has recently announced her intention to produce original content for Apple and continues to expand her brand with new projects while she has publicly stated that she's disinterested in politics she remains committed to changing the world through her philanthropic efforts and what I know is if we do our jobs right we're gonna replace shame and we're gonna replace stigma with wisdom with some compassion and with honesty from the humblest of beginnings Oprah ascended to become one of the single most influential figures in entertainment if not the world to leave this world more enlightened kinder and better than we found it and to move together one billion-plus strong into a future of our own design all connected through do you agree with our picks check out this other recent clip from MS mojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos [Music] you

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Id: 45D6LAUXExc

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019