The Biography of Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful, influential and famous women, and yet she seems like a friend to us all. She is an amazing woman with a drive to succeed and help others at the same time. Even with her incredible success and abundant wealth, she has an ability to connect with people in her unpretentious style.

Oprah was a child prodigy born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her beginnings were humble and she was born out of wedlock. Her mother moved to the north and Oprah Winfrey was raised by her grandmother on a farm until the age of six. Her grandmother taught Oprah how to read at a very young age and opened a door of possibilities for her that instilled a life long love of reading. She would recite speeches in church at the age of three and hear her grandmother's friends speak about what a gifted child she was. Oprah later came to realize that spending the first years of her life with her grandmother instead of the tumultuous life with her mother not only gave her good start in her life, but probably saved her life as well.

Oprah Winfrey did indeed eventually live with her mother in Milwaukee from the age of six to thirteen. Her life there was not the life she had with her grandmother on the farm. Oprah was abused and raped by a cousin when she was nine. The molestation did not end there and she was later sexually molested by a family friend and then an uncle. She ran away and was sent to a detention home but couldn't be admitted because the center was full. It was then Oprah was sent to Nashville at the age of thirteen to live with her father. Vernon Winfrey was very strict on her and made her keep a curfew. He also required her to read a book each week and write a book report. Even though he was a strict disciplinarian, Oprah's father was concerned with her doing the best in life and wouldn't accept anything less from her.