The Most Powerful Woman in the World

While there are multiple individual humans in the world of creators that deserve recognition in the Black in Business competition, I am going to focus on one because for me she has been a beacon of light in the world.

The most powerful woman in the world was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi on January 29th, 1954 to an impoverished teenage mother. Her mother worked long hours as a maid and she did the best she could with what she had for tools when it came to being a mother. The lines for her daughter were clearly drawn early on and those lines would become permanently drawn on the hearts of the world.

The early years were hard for her growing up, she had clothing that was made from potato sacks. Laundry was boiled in a giant pot because her family did not have a washing machine. At 9 years old Oprah faced the very thing that no child should face when she was the subject of a sexual assault by a cousin and from that point on a family friend and an uncle took it upon themselves to treat her like a possession.

In 1968 and as the result of yet another violation of her innocence Miss Winfrey became pregnant. She hid the pregnancy out of shame and pain. Unfortunately, her son Canaan was born prematurely and ultimately died. She did not tell the world, but Oprah’s trust was betrayed when the story of her son was sold in 1990.

Even with the terrible things going on in her early life she had the focus and determination to guide her story in the way she wanted it to go. She was a born a public speaker and used to interview her dolls and do speeches at her church. She did well in school and was like by her school mates. While in a later class she received a call from CBS that would change her course.

Oprah thought that she was going to be a teacher, but fate had her hired into radio at the age of 16 without knowing anything about it. Shortly after that she became an anchor on the 10 o’clock news. Citing one of her inspirations to be Barbara Walters. At 22 she moved to Baltimore and soon discovered that, due in most part to her nature (not a bad thing), she was not good at reporting and she was going to be fired. The station did not want to pay her contract out so they stuck her on the early morning talk show that aired at 5:30am. They planned to keep her there until the end of the year when her contract was up, then terminate her employment with the station.

After the first show of that talk show that aired in 1984, she knew that she should have been doing this all along and it showed. The show went from last in ratings to first. At the urging of Roger Ebert, a friend, Oprah signed a syndication deal with King World. Only her best friend Gayle King and Roger Ebert believed that she would succeed. She was a black woman and Chicago was a racist city where the talk show world was dominated by white men. She held her head, accepted the fact that she may fail, then took the first step. The Oprah Winfrey show first aired September 8th, 1986 and a mogul was born. The show ran for 25 years before Oprah cancelled it to broaden her horizons.

Her life still had many tribulations including the death of her brother Jeffery in 1989, the loss of her sister Pat in 2003, and most recently the death of her mother in 2018. Through all of it she has never strayed from her path to become a better human and that is the reason I admire her so much. So many of us are so busy in life that we forget about our fellow human beings and how much helping them helps us.

Oprah has received so many Honors that they deserve a mention. She is the richest African American in the 20th century, the first black Multi-Billionaire, has been called the most influential woman in the world, was entered into the National Woman’s Hall of Fame in 1994, has 18 Daytime Emmy awards, 2 Primetime Emmys, a Chairman’s award, a Bob Hope Humanitarian award, a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award, and what I am sure are many others that I have missed.

It is not all of her things, but how she uses them I admire so much. It is her love, kindness, empathy, anger, hope, sadness and all of the other things that make her human and how she has turned all of that into the ultimate set of tools to help the world and herself want to become more and do more because if there is anything we need in this world it is more Oprah’s.