Oprah Gail Winfrey is an unlikely candidate to become the first black billionaire and a successful talk show host due to her violent, poverty-stricken childhood and constant struggles as a minority in the south. Growing up in the late 1900s filled with racism and hardships, she hardly fit the frame of a typical billionaire that usually acquires wealth from fraud or nepotism. Her charming TV personality and philanthropic works exemplify how she continuously defies the odds and chooses to use her wealth for the betterment of society. “In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother's house in Milwaukee, watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for Best Actor at the 36th Academy Awards.” (Jester). Moments like these …show more content…
DeMille award in 1982, accepts the award for Best Actor. Born in 1954 and living her childhood through the prime of the civil rights movement, Winfrey later stands in 2018 accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award as the first black woman for achieving “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment” (Laws). Through hard working opportunities and achievements, Winfrey builds her own empire of talk shows, partnerships, and work in philanthropy. While hosting her first talk show People Are Talking, she begins to establish her repertoire of fans and experience. Larger production companies become aware of her charisma and one “Dennis Swanson who took a chance on me for A.M. Chicago” (Jester). From the attention in A.M Chicago to her philanthropic work, Winfrey begins to rise with the “launch of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986, becoming the first Black female host of a nationally syndicated daily talk show” (Piccotti) that runs for over 25 years resulting in one of the most influential and prosperous shows on modern television. Furthermore, her speech was particularly memorable and impactful in 2018, due to the rising MeToo movement. Winfrey experienced abuse and sexual assault in her childhood and dedicates her speech “to all the women who have endured years of