Oprah Winfrey

It may well be that no other person in history has risen so far - from

such poverty and despair to such wealth and fame - as Oprah Winfrey.

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Born to a single, teenage mother in rural Mississippi, Oprah was raised by her
grandmother until the age of six. The family was so poor that Oprah sometimes had to
wear dresses made from potato sacks. Things didn’t improve much when Oprah went to
live with her mother. They lived in a poor neighborhood and struggled to afford decent
food and clothes.
It wasn’t only the grinding poverty and the open prejudice against black people that made
her childhood so tough; Oprah was beaten and sexually abused by family members. At
age thirteen, she ran away from home. By fourteen, she was pregnant (her baby died
shortly after it was born), and she got involved with drugs and emotionally abusive men.
But Oprah Winfrey had a spirit that would not be destroyed, and a mind that yearned to
be free. Out of her troubled past came a young woman determined to learn, grow, and
succeed in life.
Oprah became a top student in high school, and started winning public-speaking contests.
She was so good at speaking that she won a university scholarship, and so beautiful that
she won the state beauty pageant.
Her big break came when a local radio station offered this bright, well spoken, and
determined young woman a part-time job in the newsroom. After that, it wasn’t long
before Winfrey’s hard work and talent earned her a spot in television news. She got so