Oprah Winfrey – The Richest Black Woman

Oprah Winfrey, formerly a poor black woman born of an unwed black mother, does not fit the prescription for a billion dollar entrepreneur extraordinaire, but that is exactly what she is. Her legendary story is based on her spirit, her desire and her persistence in the face of obstacles to succeed and move forward.
Born on January 29, 1954, in she is best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which was in syndication from 1986 to 2011. She is also an actress, producer, talk show host, philanthropist and media mogul. She was the first black billionaire and the richest black female of African American heritage in the 20th century.
Born in rural Kosciusko, Mississippi, she was the product of a single sexual encounter. Her mother, Vernita Lee (b. 1935) was a housemaid, and Oprah was mostly raised by her maternal grandmother. She was so poor that she wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the other children made fun of her. Of all the women in her life, her grandmother was her greatest support, teaching her how to read by age three and was known for her Bible recitations.
In fact, she was constantly shuffled back and forth during her childhood and experienced considerable hardship. She recalls being molested by her cousin, her uncle and a family friend, was raped at age 9 and gave birth to a baby boy at age 14, who died in infancy.
Oprah was a bright student, and was entered into the honors program in high school. There were problems there too, since she was poor and classmates would rub her poverty in her nose. Even so, she excelled. Stealing money from her mother, fighting and going out with older boys, she was in a period of rebellion which shows in her determined character. She went to live with the man she believed to be her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Tennessee. (She later learned that her real father was a man named Noah … born in 1925.)
Oprah flourished in Nashville. Her first job was in a supermarket. Vernon Winfrey was strict but encouraging, and Oprah began to study in earnest. She excelled in her studies, winning awards for drama and oration and was voted Most Popular Girl.
She won the first Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant, where she attracted her first job offer in the media, working for radio station WVOL as a co-anchored for the evening news. She was employed there from her senior year in high school through her first two years of college. Due to her excellent academic record, she won a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she majored in Communications.
Her personable style got her career boosted into the daytime talk arena, to the point that the Chicago firm she landed in went up in ratings from third to first place. Not long after, she started her own production company and became internationally syndicated. Oprah’s grandmother had always said she was born to be on stage, since she used to interview corncob dolls and crows on the fence on their farm. Oprah says it was her grandmother Hattie Mae who influenced her the most and gave her “a positive sense of myself.”
She is thought to have revolutionized the talk show arena which started with Phil Donahue’s style of confession and intimacy with the studio and TV audience. Oprah took it a step further. By adding spirituality, literature, self-improvement and more, her emotional approach, which has been criticized by some and adored by the majority of modern women, has enabled her to become a benefactor to many.
Oprah’s career path went from radio to TV, and after Chicago she became the first female black anchor at Nashville’s WLAC TV. Then she moved to Baltimore to anchor the WJZ evening news and became a local talk show host with Richard Sher on People are Talking in 1978.
In 1983, Oprah returned to Chicago to host WLS-TVs miserably low rated morning talk show AM Chicago. Just a few months later, the last place rated talk show overtook Phil Donahue as being the highest rated talk show in Chicago.
There, her friend and short-lived romantic partner Roger Ebert convinced her to sign a syndication agreement with King World, saying that she would make 40 times more revenue than his popular series called At the Movies.
Named The Oprah Winfrey Show, it first aired on September 8, 1986, and within a short time, brought in double Donahue’s audience.
Known for her heavy figure and being a black female, no one would have guessed that she had the power to oust a white male from this traditionally male dominated position. In the beginning, her show was listed as a tabloid talk show, but as Oprah’s topics began to diversify for a wider audience, the quality and dignity of her show became readily apparent. By the mid-1990s, the innovative entrepreneur was covering topics like heart disease, geopolitics, cancer, substance abuse, interviewing celebrities on social issues and charity work.
As an actress, Oprah has starred in the Women of Brewster Place, as well as for her role as Sophia in the Color Purple which she was nominated an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. As a producer, she co-founded a women’s cable TV network Oxygen, and converted the Discovery Health Channel to OWN Oprah Winfrey Network, which was launched on January 1, 2011. She is also the President of Harpo Communications, which is Oprah spelled in reverse.
Celebrity interviews include a rare, prime time interview with Michael Jackson, the most watched TV interview ever, with a 36 million viewing audience. When she was appeared to help promote the Broadway musical The Color Purple as a guest on the David Letterman Show in December 1, 2005, she helped him reach his highest ratings in 11 years – an audience of 13.45 million viewers. Two years later, David returned the favor, guesting Oprah’s show on September 10, 2007.

Oprah told rappers Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube that she refused to support rap lyrics that “marginalize women“. For Barrack Obama, she won an estimated 1 million votes due to her endorsement of the Democratic candidate from 2006 to his victorious election in 2008.
The Oprah.com website gets a hefty 70 million page views per month, with links to her highly acclaimed book club, magazines, public charity and Oprah’s Child Predator Watch, enabling two escaped convicts to be captured within a 48 hour period.
Oprah admits to having had a weight problem for most of her life, which seems to be related with her romantic difficulties. Her childhood took a heavy toll on her, and she attracted the wrong kinds of men, including a liaison with “cruel, self absorbed” types, including a married man, an abusive man, and a few interracial relationships that did not go the distance. Oprah had begun a romantic friendship with Haitian filmmaker Reginald Chevalier in 1985, but she ended it when she met her current partner Stedman Graham the same year. They have been together since 1986. The couple was allegedly engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony has never taken place.
Oprah’s best friend is another black female professional in the Communications profession named Gayle King, who she has known since her early twenties. She is also close with Maria Shriver, as well as Maya Angelou the poet authoress. Oprah threw her “mother-sister-friend” (as she calls her) a fabulous 70th birthday celebration and once again for her 80th birthday celebration.
Her annual earnings in 2008 were $275 million. Her estimated net worth is $2.7 billion, and she has replaced E-Bay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.