Oprah Winfrey came up from a very humble background without knowing that she would become one of America’s most influential women. Being born to an unmarried teenage mother on 29 January 1954 in Kosciusko,Mississippi was only a piece of junk in her life. Oprah Winfrey spent her first ages in a very poor condition with her grandmother, Hattei Mae in an animal farm. Although she lived in poverty, her grandma taught her to read and write at an early age of 3. Her name should be Orpah Gail Winfrey instead based on the bible, but the relatives could not pronounce it correctly and changed to Oprah. She was labelled as The Little Speaker in church and been known ad the gifted child. And she even skipped 3 grades in school for having the abilities beyond the normal kids.
At age 6, Oprah moved to Milwaukee to live with her mother, Vernita Lee in a small room of a woman’s house. Her mother was accepted to be maid in the house and she only give her attention on Oprah at nights. But, it was so seldom of it as she would always be really tired for entertaining her. Oprah was unhappy and Vernita knew that, so Vernita sent Oprah to live with her father, Vernon, a barber and businessman and her step-mother Zelma in Nashville. There, she somehow changed her life little by little when she became a hardworking girl by doing addition and subtraction qquestions every day and attended Sunday School and recitations in church nearby.
Suddenly, her sole mum called and told her she was pregnant and expecting babies. Oprah was needed there for taking care of her mother and she went back to Milwaukee. There she lived with her half sister and after two years, her mother had a baby boy. When Oprah was nine years old and was baby-sitted by her nineteen years old male cousin, she got raped by him. This was the first time Oprah being sexually abused as black African-American women don’t get any rights years before this. They were treated like slaves and molested each and every time. The same things happened to Oprah as after the first sexually abused, she had been repeatedly molested by her male relatives and also her mother’s live in boyfriend.
After those incidents happened, she became a quiet girl and never told any soul about it because the predators told her to silence for avoiding trouble. Vernita Lee realized that she had changed her habits and became more stubborn, so her mother did sent her to girls home but then all the beds were full. Oprah continued to acting out as she could not discusss the abusement with her mother. She skipping school, stealing money from her mother, dating with older boys and running away finally at the age of thirteen although she was so fammous in Lincoln Middle School in downtown Milwaukee. Gene Abrams, her teacher transferred her to Nicolet High School, an all white school in Glendale, Wisconsin. At Nicolet, she was the only African-American student and it was a hip to know black student.
At the age of fourteen she left her house permanently and was sexually promiscuousing herself for gaining money. Oprah’s mother can’t figure it out and sent her to live once again with her father in Nashville ,Tennessee. She discovered she was pregnant and only told her parents until she was in her 7th month. After giving birth to a baby boy who died in infancy, she took this death as a second chance for her to live back on track again, she kept followed her father directions . Her father was very strict and made aducation as the first priority of Oprah. She was given her first curfew hours, new clothes, a set of rules, and some tasks like she had to read and do a book report each week, as well as memorize five new words each day. If she hadn’t done her tasks, she would not be given foods. “As strict as he was”, says Oprah, “he had some concerns about me making the best of my life, and would not accept anything less than what he thought was my best.”
Oprah had good study habits and probably came from one of the most influential people in her life, Mrs. Duncan, her fourth grade teacher. Oprah was also elected school president and met with president Richard Nixon being apart of public speaking classes in her high school. At 16, Oprah read Maya Angelou biography book, I Know Why The Caged Birds Sings and saying “I read it over and over, I had never before read a book that validated my existence.” Doctor Angelou became a very close friend to Oprah and kept her focusing in her education and public speaking. Oprah’s talent would take her place as she won an Elk’s Club speaking competition, earning a 4 year old college scholarship as the prize. She was voted The Most Popular Girl in school and got a full scholarship to Tennessee State University to study communication when she won oratory competition.
At the age of 17, Oprah won Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and was offered an on-air job at radio station, WVOL. They gave her job of reading news. She started taking a degree in Speech Communications and Performing Arts in Tennessee State University. At a moment, the local CBS television station offered her a job as a co-anchor. She kept rejecting it for about three times but then finally spoke to her speech professor about it. He told her that this was her chance to launch her career. At age nineteen Oprah finally accepted the job and went to the interview pretending that she was Barbara Walters. Oprah worked late into the night and also studying for college during the day. She carried out her work on television pretending that she was Barbara Walters until one day she just started to laugh in the middle of the broadcast. Her boss was not impressed.At 19, she becomes anchor of Nashville's WTVF-TV station and leaves Tennessee State University to be the first female African-American news anchor in Nashville.
A few months before she graduatting her degree, she quitted study and work fulltime at Baltimore as a reporter but she got fired for being emotional while reporting. Her boss set her up as a co-host of a morning talk show called “People Are Talking”and she made the show more popular soon after that. In 1981 she took the advantage of sending the talk show tapes to A.M. Chicago. And finally the Chicago talk show offered her a job of hosting her first nationally boardcasting show called “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and by that time, everything went so perfect for Oprah until now. With its placement on 120 channels and an audience of 10 million people across the board, the show gained $125 million by the end of its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million.
As we read through out Oprah Winfrey’s life, we would soon discovered on how much hopes she had to gave out in order to become like the one in present. Her childhood was a terrible experience one could ever imagine. She had been molested by many relatives bu still she could find her way back. She managed to struggle with a died infancy at the very young age which i found it was very hard to do that. Oprah is a good-natured person who has a very hight patience towards unbelievable events and very tolerance with changes. This is a very good example of a leader. Furthermore, she is a religious one who never fails to believe in everything God sent to her. It was like she was lying her hopes on God since the beginning as she loves to recite Bible in church. She never give up from small until she became adult.
And as for me, she is a visionary person as she able to give up her graduate school and fulfill her dreans to become a host for TV shows. She never afraid of taking risks in her life as she said “the biggest risk is to take no risk”. In 1987, the show received three Daytime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Host, Outstanding Talk or Service Program and also Outstanding Direction. The following year, the show received it’s second consecutive Emmy as Outstanding Talk/Service Program, and Oprah herself received the International Radio and Television Society's "Broadcaster of the Year" Award. She was the youngest person ever to receive the honor as she have positive attitude towards every consequences that may happen.
Furthermore, she is a generous and kind-hearted woman who always use her wealth to help others. After filming a Christmas program in South Africa, she established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, near Johannesburg. Her generosity has extended not only to her favorite charities, but to her loyal viewers. She celebrated the beginning of her 20th season on national television by giving every member of the studio audience a brand new Pontiac automobile.
I like her pretty much as she always stand up the human rights such as women’s rights and children welfare. She is one of the most braverest woman on Earth as she often spoke about these topics in her show publicly. These all happened because she had enough experiences about the failure and disabilities in life. She also got influence over the way people around the world to read, eat, exercise, feel and think about themselves and the world around them. She appears on every list of the world's leading opinion-makers, and has been rightly called "the most powerful woman in the world."
More over, she used her power intensively and beneficially. This was proven in the 2008 presidential election, Oprah publicly endorsed a political candidate for the first time, hosting a fundraiser for Senator Barack Obama and appearing with him at campaign events. It is widely believed that her support was crucial to his winning the Democratic nomination. Besides, she made a good business partner when she join broadcasting venture with Discovery Health Channel and to be renamed as Oprah Winfrey Network. She now publishes two magazines, O, The Oprah Magazine, and O at Home. The launch of her first magazine was the most successful start-up in the industry indicated when Forbes published its list of America's billionaires for the year 2003, it confirmed that Oprah Winfrey was the first African-American woman to become a billionaire.
She also explains beauty to the world as being perfect from inside and outside. Beauty is not just about physical appearance, it consists of subjective definitions regarding on how the whole world sees you and how successful you are to become the best person you wanna be. Her success led to nationwide fame and a role in Steven Spielberg's 1985 film, The Color Purple, for she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1998, Oprah Winfrey was named one of the "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century" by Time magazine, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She eventually measured as the highest paid performer on television, the richest self-made woman in America, and the richest African-American of the 20th century.
This world is very fortunate if she also have faith in Islam religion and helped in expanding Islam victory across the board. And surely Allah will grant her with many blessings and goodness in the world and Hereafter.
