Black history month is the time of the year when African-Americans all over the country celebrate significant heroes whom they admire. Oprah Winfrey is my hero and role model.
As a future female journalist, I look up to the best that there is, in hopes of becoming as good or better. Winfrey, as a media mogul, a philanthropist, an actress and a TV talk show host, has opened up many doorways for aspiring African American women journalists, myself included.
Looking at all her success and fame, as well as her legacy, she gives me hope for my future. I admire how she demonstrates how even through struggles and hardships, you can put it all aside and still chase your dreams. She overcame poverty in Mississippi and childhood rape to achieve her success.
Despite her difficult childhood and ongoing weight struggles, she radiates love and concern for others. She is always encouraging people to live their best life – great advice for us all.
I hope to become a great writer and journalist and follow in her footsteps, and believe me, they are very large. She not only worked hard to get her own self-titled talk show, but many years and billions of dollars later, she now owns her own magazine and television network.
She even founded a school in Africa, The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, which recently celebrated its first graduating class of 72 girls.
In a Reuters article by Ndundu Sithole and Jon Herskovits, Oprah was quoted after the graduation ceremony as saying, “I have been on a mission my whole life to be able to give back what I have been given. Today I am fulfilling that mission.”
Her generosity inspires me.
As a book club booster, Winfrey has also encouraged and influenced more people to actually pick up a book and read. Literacy is one of the best things that you can offer society.
I just hope that one day my book will be on that Oprah’s Book Club reading list, or better yet, the Kadijah Book Club reading list.