On this day in 1954 (2024)

Jan. 29, 1954

Oprah Winfrey, who became the first Black female billionaire in U.S. history, was born to a single teen mother in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was named after a biblical character in Ruth, Orpah, which was mispronounced, and she became Oprah.

Raised initially by her grandmother, she was so impoverished that she often wore dresses made of potato sacks. Other children teased her and made fun of her.

At age 6, she was sent to inner-city Milwaukee to live with her mother. While growing up, she was molested and became pregnant at 14. The son she gave birth to, born prematurely, died in infancy. She then went to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, in Nashville. She became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl and won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant at the age of 17.

While still in high school, she landed a job at a local Black radio station. By age 19, she was co-anchoring the local news station. In 1976, she began hosting the TV chat show in Baltimore, “People are Talking,” which became a hit. In 1986, she became the first Black female TV talk show host with “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

The biggest host at the time was Phil Donahue. Within months, Winfrey’s warm ways caused her to go from worst to first in the ratings, and she never looked back, hosting the most successful talk show in U.S. history.

She won 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and was twice nominated for an Academy Award, winning its humanitarian award. In 2003, she became the first Black woman to reach billionaire status, according to Forbes magazine. A year later, she became the first Black American to reach BusinessWeek’s Annual Ranking of “America’s Top Philanthropists.”

She stopped hosting the talk show in 2011, but she never stopped, continuing her Oprah Book Club and magazine and expanding her media empire by creating the OWN Network. In 2013, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.