F A N T A S T I C P R E S E N T A
¡Bienvenido al primer Oprah Winfrey Show nacional!
- [la música continúa] - [vítores]
Este espectáculo siempre permite a las personas, con suerte,
para entender el poder que tienen para cambiar sus propias vidas.
- [mujer 1] Querida Oprah ... - [mujer 2] Querida Señora O ...
-Yá'át'ééh, Oprah ... -Querida Oprah ...
Querida Oprah, solía ver tu programa todos los días.
Usted no...
[Oprah] En todos los años del show de Oprah,
para los millones de personas con las que hablé todos los días en el programa,
Estaba alentando a que se levantaran.
Antes de que nadie más hablara sobre eso en la televisión nacional,
le diste a la comunidad LGBTQ una plataforma,
y me diste el coraje de decir mi verdad.
Me mostraste que nuestras historias importan,
que podemos ser los personajes principales de nuestras vidas.
[mujer de púrpura] Me ayudaste a ser la mejor versión de mí mismo.
[Oprah] Estas personas que escriben estas cartas,
estas personas que fueron mi, cita, audiencia,
estas personas cuyas vidas me han tocado
y mi vida tocada por ellos
Se convirtieron en mi familia.
-Querida Oprah ... - [mujer] Querida Oprah ...
-Querida Oprah ... -Querida Oprah ...
Querida Oprah ...
[Oprah] Nada de lo que te pasa se desperdicia.
Crecí para ser esta persona
quien podría hablar con personas de todo el mundo todos los días
sobre sus problemas y sobre lo que importaba
porque también crecí luchando, sin tener suficiente.
Crecí pobre en Mississippi.
Nacido en 1954.
Tenía una madre joven y soltera.
Y como muchos otros niños negros, me quedé con mi abuela.
Y creo que ella me dio lo que sabía darme.
Ella me dio a Jesús.
A belief in something greater than myself, which has allowed me to never feel alone.
She taught me to read through reading the Bible.
I got lots and lots of whippings that I don't believe I should have gotten.
The only real expectation she held for me was that I would become a maid.
And I knew that that was not gonna be my life.
I just believed that there was something greater for me.
I always say I was born at the right time
because I was born the year of Brown v. Board of Education
which opened the door for schools to no longer be segregated.
There was this wave of hope that a change was about to come.
My first day of kindergarten, walking into that classroom,
seeing all the little white kids playing with their ABCs.
A bee.
I felt like, "What am I doing in here? I am in the wrong place."
And I remember writing my kindergarten teacher, Miss New, a letter
saying, "Dear Miss New, I do not belong here.
I know a lot of big words."
And writing out every big word I could think of,
which at the time was...
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth
and elephant and hippopotamus, just for good measure.
[chuckles]
And she marched me off to the first grade.
Being able to do that for myself at six years old
planted a seed of independence
and taking care of myself and speaking up for myself
that followed me throughout my life.
[woman and Oprah] Dear Oprah,
I am a product of your teachings.
By setting an intention in living a purpose-driven life,
we could achieve anything.
When I was just 18 months old, tragically, my biological mother passed away.
Thankfully, my aunt and uncle took me in and raised me as their own daughter.
I was in a caring home, but as a little girl, I still felt different
because I didn't have a traditional family.
This is so exciting. We're talking about
how to find greater meaning and purpose in your life.
Isn't it great we're talking about this on TV?
When I was in elementary school, I used to watch your show every day.
It was then that I discovered
that as little girls, we had the same start in life.
We were both raised by someone other than our parents.
Like your grandmother, my aunt Ora Lee was a very religious woman,
who cleaned houses for a living.
Discovering the similarities in our stories gave me permission to dream.
I was the first person in my family to finish college.
I graduated with a 4.0 in physics.
My aunt was so proud.
But the very next day, she revealed to me that she had cancer.
It was heartbreaking to watch her suffer as cancer wreaked havoc on her body.
Three months later, Ora Lee Smith, the only mother I ever knew, was gone.
Oprah, it was then I truly grasped your principle of living a purpose-driven life.
I enrolled in graduate school,
determined to find a better way to treat cancer.
After years of challenging research and experiments,
I developed an innovative cancer treatment.
[male reporter] Top physicist Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green
is developing a laser treatment with little to no side effects.
If there was something that I was born to do, maybe this was it.
And I got the first results: The tumor shrank so fast that nobody believed it.
In 2016, I was awarded a $1.1 million federal grant for my research.
When I heard you were starting your own company,
it inspired me to start a nonprofit,
the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation,
named in memory of my late aunt.
Wow. Fantastic.
[pats letter] That's good.
By the time I entered college, what I really wanted to do was to be an actress,
but I got hired in television.
The US Labor Department reports today that the unemployment rate again
dropped below 6% in the month of August.
I show up on the air in Baltimore
as a 22-year-old, still green behind the ears,
barely can write copy, but I can speak really well.
Wanting to be like Barbara Walters, sitting like Barbara,
trying to speak like Barbara, in this tone like Barbara.
And reading the news when the light came on.
A Talbot County judge sentenced Dorothy Stevenson
to life in prison for the murder of...
I'm paired with a coanchor who doesn't want me there,
an elderly white man who's like, "Who is this kid?"
They didn't like my hair. They actually asked me to have plastic surgery.
So obviously, they were trying to make me look like somebody that I wasn't.
And it did not work.
I felt like a failure,
and I was gonna get fired.
And as they're trying to figure out what to do with me,
they put me on this talk show.
Let's welcome to Channel 13's People Are Talking,
the fabulous Oprah Winfrey!
[cheers, applause]
[Oprah] I was just basically out there raw.
We're just kind of figuring it out as we're going along.
When you're getting towards the magic cocktail hour...
-Oh, terrible, I got a hair in mine. -...you can have--
-[audience laughs] -One of my hairs fell in it. I'm sorry.
I cracked myself up on TV, which was my first natural moment.
People in the audience responded. Phones rang.
[man] People Are Talking is the highest rated TV talk show around.
More people watch that show than any other morning talk show.
[Oprah] That was my breakthrough.
After that, I actually was striving to be more of myself.
We decided to do what we do best
and that is a show about and with everyday people.
The Oprah Winfrey Show first went on national TV in the late '80s.
All the shows were born of things that people were really talking about.
Every producer read several papers a day from around the country.
That's when you actually had to get the papers.
There was no online or anything.
And someone had read a story
about the fact that there were no black people allowed in Forsyth County.
And we're like, "What do you mean allowed?"
I just thought, "Wouldn't it be interesting
for me to be in a town hall with all the people,
asking them why they didn't want black people in town?"
This is the beginning of the white civil rights movement in this town.
Go home, nigger! Go home, nigger! Go home, nigger!
Go home, nigger!
Oh, I can't even believe how bold we were to do that now.
And not even a lot of thought about how dangerous it would be.
We are live in Forsyth County, Georgia,
in a community that has remained all-white since 1912.
Talking to the people of this county...
Walking into that room, I did not feel immediate hostility or danger.
You know, a lot of those people in that room watch the show.
You don't believe that people of other races have the right to live here?
They have the right to live wherever they want to,
but we have the right to choose if we want a white community also.
-That's why we moved here. -You believe...
That's what you believe. Excuse me.
I felt that it was just ignorance
and using your power to keep other people from rising.
Do you believe in the Bible? What Bible do you believe in?
King James Version, the Holy Bible.
It say anything about niggers and blacks in the Bible?
Yes, it sure does. I mean, I'm not up on it now.
-But I wanna ask this. These people... -I wanna know what it says, okay?
These people that are here today that are welcoming...
[Oprah] In most instances, you want to meet people exactly where they are,
but when you are speaking to people, espousing their own vitriol,
you've gotta rise above it.
No estás tratando de alinearte con ellos. Estás tratando de trascenderlos.
Entonces, eso es exactamente lo que estaba intentando hacer en esa habitación.
Querida Oprah, hace unos años,
Me mudé de Atlanta a un vecindario suburbano en el condado de Forsyth, Georgia.
[hombre, Oprah] "Vinimos aquí por los barrios muy unidos del área
y escuelas increíbles ".
[solo] Parecía el lugar perfecto para criar a nuestros tres hijos.
Poco después de mudarse aquí, un residente de mucho tiempo preguntó
si considerara postularme para el Senado del estado de Georgia.
Desde que tengo memoria, me ha apasionado el servicio público.
Vi esto como una oportunidad para ser un líder en mi nueva comunidad.
Decidí entrar en la carrera.
Entonces todo cambió.
Todo comenzó cuando recibí un correo electrónico de un amigo que decía:
"Necesitas ver esto".
Era un enlace a un episodio de The Oprah Winfrey Show de hace casi 30 años,
filmado aquí en el condado de Forsyth.
Te traemos hoy al condado de Forsyth, Georgia,
que en las últimas semanas se ha ganado la reputación
de ser un semillero de racismo.
No hay negros aquí. ¿Por qué deberían venir, sabes?
Nigger, vete a casa! Nigger, vete a casa!
No podía creer lo que estaba viendo en la pantalla.
Fue surrealista.
Pensé: "¿Esto realmente sucedió aquí?"
[juntos] "Oprah, por días,
No pude sacar de mi cabeza las imágenes racistas de 1987 ".
Me hizo preguntarme si el pasado distante no era tan distante en absoluto.
Hmm
Me estaba exponiendo así de una manera pública
¿Vas a ponerme a mí o a mi familia en peligro? - [retumba el motor]
Al día siguiente, reproduje el video una vez más.
Y fue entonces cuando me concentré en algo nuevo.
[juntos] "No en el odio, sino en ti".
¿Quieres decir que ellos, nosotros, toda la raza negra?
-Toda la raza negra? -Tienes negros y tienes negros.
El condado de Forsyth es un lindo lugar para vivir, un lindo condado.
[Oprah] Para los blancos.
[la audiencia se ríe]
Algunos miembros de la audiencia decían cosas realmente aterradoras.
Y, Oprah, nunca retrocediste.
Mandó la sala y exigió su respeto.
La palabra que viene a la mente es "sin miedo".
No podemos dejar que el miedo nos intimide. Debemos elevarnos por encima de él.
Me quedé en la carrera, gracias a ti, Oprah.
Creo que este es el comienzo
de un cambio de dirección y esperanza en nuestra comunidad.
Eso es lo que hace grande a nuestro país, nuestra capacidad de unirnos
cuando podríamos no estar de acuerdo, pero ponernos de pie cuando otras personas no digan nada.
[salud]
Mi campaña fue mucho más grande que una elección.
Se trataba de encontrar un terreno común
y mostrando un ejemplo de lo que es posible aquí en un lugar como Forsyth.
[juntos] "Estoy muy agradecido de continuar el trabajo que comenzaron aquí".
Es realmente increible.
[Oprah] Cuando comenzamos a hacer el programa, estaba feliz de tener un trabajo,
pero como que sabía que algo estaba pasando,
porque cuando caminaba por la calle, la gente decía: "¿No eres tú?"
-¿Puedo estrechar tu mano? Hola cariño. -Hola. ¿Cómo estás?
-Hola, Oprah! -Hola.
[Oprah] Okree, Ofree, Ovrah, Walnut.
Entonces, al principio, comencé a tener un espectáculo,
y luego me di cuenta, "Oh, esto no es solo un espectáculo".
[audiencia aplaude]
La gente realmente está llegando a ser parte de algo.
Vienen a ser parte de esta comunidad de Oprah.
¡Encantador!
Y así, lo que me dio todo mi, cita, "poder"
Fue una conexión energética que tuve con el público.
Eres un público tan guapo.
Es genial ver a todos los hombres aquí. Sé que fuiste arrastrado aquí por tus esposas.
- [la audiencia se ríe] -Es bueno verte.
Sabía que las personas que estaban mirando también eran como yo,
sin importar de dónde son, cuáles son sus antecedentes,
cuántos doctorados o no tienen Ds.
Sabía que nuestro corazón era el mismo.
Me dije a mí mismo: "No voy a un lugar oscuro".
Y tuve un momento en el que respiré y lo solté.
Chico, eso es maravilloso. Estás muy avanzado.
Y una de las razones por las que fue un fenómeno
fue que pude encontrar puntos en común con todos.
No importa lo que se te entregue, puedes sobrevivir.
No había barreras entre mí
obviamente una mujer afroamericana del Mississippi segregado,
y mi audiencia
la mayoría de los cuales eran mujeres blancas de clase media.
No te puedes imaginar el llanto que haces.
-Solo no puedes. -Lo sé.
Y esa relación con todas las personas.
nos permitió hablar sobre temas de una manera que nadie más lo había hecho antes.
Algunas de las historias son de naturaleza muy sensible,
así que es posible que desee encontrar algo más para que hagan los niños.
Estábamos sacando todo esto
que la gente había sido afectada negativamente por
Y la gente continuó revelándose.
La gente pensaba que era Superwoman.
Una mujer incluso me dijo
ella pensó que nunca había tenido un día triste en toda mi vida.
[Oprah] Mm-hmm.
Pero eso es porque estaba ocupado guardando el secreto.
No podía decirles lo que estaba pasando.
Hablamos sobre abuso, abuso, abuso, abuso, abuso, abuso, abuso.
Hice muchos shows sobre abuso y abuso sexual.
Esta es una historia como ninguna otra que puedas escuchar.
A la edad de dos años, Truddi Chase fue brutalmente violada por su padrastro.
y fue abusada continuamente hasta que se escapó a los 16 años.
[susurra] Detente.
[Oprah] Me conmovió particularmente Truddi
porque estaba teniendo revelaciones sobre mi propia agresión sexual
mientras la entrevistaba.
Truddi dice que quería que otros ... [sollozando]
algún día ser capaz de entender
que no están solos en su abuso,
y es por eso que estamos haciendo este show.
[Oprah] Estaba en mis 20 años
antes de escuchar a alguien hablar sobre su propio abuso sexual.
Y la primera vez que lo escuché, estaba en un programa de entrevistas en Baltimore.
Y fue la primera vez que me di cuenta
No era la única persona con la que había pasado.
Luego entré al invernadero y le dije a esa chica:
"Oh, Dios mío. A mí me pasó lo mismo".
Y ella dijo: "¿Por qué no dijiste algo cuando estábamos en el aire?"
Y le dije: "Tenía miedo de hacerlo.
Porque nunca se lo he dicho a nadie ".
Entonces, pensé que si alguna vez tuviera la oportunidad de decir algo otra vez, lo haría.
-Lo he guardado dentro de mí durante 17 años. - [mujer] Sí.
[Oprah] Había una mujer en el programa contando su historia.
Y pensé: "No voy a guardar silencio al respecto".
También fui violada cuando tenía nueve años.
Y, um, abusos subsecuentes, um, a otras edades, 12 y 13.
Y llevó una adolescencia muy confusa.
[Oprah] El poder de compartir tu historia
significa que cuanto más lo diga, menos agarre tendrá sobre usted.
Siempre estaba en busca de alguien que me amara
y no entendí la conexión
entre haber sido despojado de mi inocencia como un niño de nueve años
y toda esa confusión.
[Oprah] No esperaba que saliera nada de eso.
Y luego se abrieron las compuertas
con miles de personas que se presentan
No tenía idea de que esto era un problema en el mundo
hasta que hablé de eso
solo para decir: "Yo también.
Lo mismo me pasó a mí."
[mujer 1 y Oprah] Querida Oprah,
Al crecer en el Medio Oeste, mi infancia fue increíble.
Yo era un niño feliz con una vida sin preocupaciones.
Todo fue perfecto hasta el verano de 1980.
I had no idea our stories were about to be connected in such an unimaginable way.
Like you, I was abused by someone I knew.
The summer I was nine years old,
my friend's older brother tricked me into coming over when he was home alone.
I was brutally assaulted by him.
The experience was horrific.
Inside I was shattered, but I buried my secret and carried on.
When I was getting ready for college,
I found out my abuser was killed in a car accident.
I thought everything would change, and I would feel safe again.
But I had built up so much anger and bitterness over the years
that it was impossible to let go.
[together] "College was a tough transition for me.
I struggled being around so many new people.
And at times, I was afraid to leave my dorm room."
[alone] But I did make friends with a few girls,
and we'd watch your show together after class.
[theme music plays]
Hello, everybody. I'm Oprah Winfrey.
Our show today confronts a problem that is so widespread
that chances are it is happening right in your very home,
and you may not even know it.
I speak from personal experience because I was raped by a relative.
You talked about things I'd never heard anyone discuss out in the open before.
Like me, you had kept your secret for years.
But now you spoke so openly about your trauma.
[together] "We were from such different worlds.
But I felt a deep, almost spiritual, connection to you."
[alone] When I heard you retell the story of your abuse,
I was at one of my lowest emotional points.
But there was something else you said that changed my life.
Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.
You have to do it for yourself.
I speak from what I know.
I always thought that if I forgave my abuser,
I'd be letting him off the hook.
I made the decision that forgiveness is something I'm gonna give myself this year.
But when you said those words, I realized I was the only one suffering.
He's gone.
I knew then it was time to forgive.
[together] "That painful weight I'd been carrying since I was nine years old
started to lift."
And the anger and bitterness finally began to disappear.
Oprah, you've taught me that acknowledging an issue is half the battle.
Once you voice it, it loses its power over you.
Now, I travel the country talking to women's groups
about my journey and how I have reconciled my abuse.
Witnessing your bravery helped me discover mine.
You gave me the power to set myself free.
Amazing.
Mary Kay, let's meet about today's show.
[Mary Kay] It's going to be a good one.
They have sex. They've been divorced for eight years.
[Oprah] In the '80s, we did the daily talk show fare.
We were doing the, you know, "My sister slept with my sister's husband."
That is a lie.
-And I'll ram it down your throat. -I've got tapes.
[Oprah] We're doing all kinds of salacious, confrontational shows.
You need to get it together and find yourself a man of your own.
You don't go out and look for a married man. You're out in public--
You should go out and look for a--
There was a show with men who cheat.
And the producers were able to get a man to come on the show
with his wife and his mistress.
And the husband said to his wife...
during a live show, he turns to his wife and says to her...
"Well, you know, she's pregnant."
And he's speaking of his girlfriend.
And the pain and humiliation on her face...
I can still see her face and feel her pain.
And I said, "Never again will this happen to me."
There is no television show that's worth that.
I cannot do that to another human being.
And after the show, I said to my producers,
"We're never gonna do anything like that, even like that, again.
We're gonna change the course of the show."
You know what I believe?
I believe that people are, in spite of what we see on the news every night,
are ultimately good, want to do good and wanna help other people.
I believe that. And one of the reasons why I wanted to continue doing this show
is because I believe that television is a way of opening people's hearts.
Some station manager said,
"Well, can you just have, you know, Sleazy Fridays,
or can you just do, you know, Junk Tuesdays?"
And I thought, "Well, okay, if all the station managers reject this
and this doesn't work, I will get out of television.
I won't-- I just won't do it."
You know, you can watch one of those other shows where people throw chairs
-and, um, and feud... -[audience chuckles]
and they bring out surprise family members you haven't seen in a long time.
That's not what we're gonna do.
I got so beat up
with people saying, "Now it's the church of Oprah."
But I just stayed the course.
I started looking at the approach as,
"How do I drop pieces of light into people's lives?"
We're on a campaign today on this show
to try to make the world a little bit kinder.
Once I started to recognize the power of this platform,
I realized the enormous responsibility
that comes with being able to speak with clarity
and intention and purpose and meaning
because you are in people's homes.
It started to not be a show for me.
It started to be a purposeful life mission,
an opportunity to make people's lives better,
to actually be a force for good.
[woman and Oprah] Dear Oprah,
[alone] My name is Amber Kanazbah Crotty.
Kanazbah is a Navajo warrior name.
We are given these fierce names because we are taught to protect our home
and protect our children.
[together] "These days warriors are hard to find.
On the Navajo Nation we face what we call 'modern monsters.'"
[alone] Alcoholism, suicide and violence.
Oprah, the stakes are high.
And it's far too easy for a Navajo woman to become just another statistic.
But when I was growing up, I took wisdom from your show every day.
Your words healed me and gave me power.
[together] "I knew you were reaching out to people just like me."
[Crotty] After years of hard work,
I was so proud to become an elected delegate
for the Navajo Nation Council.
It is comparable to being a United States senator.
I was the only woman among 24 council delegates.
I know sexual misconduct was happening in our community.
And I thought because I achieved the honored position of a delegate,
I would be immune to that kind of behavior.
I wasn't.
That triggered me to speak out.
I didn't even know I was ready to fight, but I had no choice.
Sadly, I felt shunned by the majority of the men on the council,
and when I tried to talk about sexual assault or sexual harassment,
I was ignored by most of them.
[door closes]
It was heartbreaking to rise to such a coveted position
only to feel like I had no power and no voice.
This was one of the darkest moments of my life.
Oprah, that's when you cut through the noise.
You can make a difference in your own life, in the life of your children,
in the lives of your neighbors and your community
by using what you have.
Change happens one person at a time.
[Crotty] Just like in the past,
your words seemed to reach me at the exact time I needed them the most
and inspired me not to give up.
[man] The Honorable Amber Crotty.
[Crotty] I traveled to Washington DC to testify.
I'm here today on behalf of the Navajo Nation
to implore this committee to intervene
to stop the alarming rates of our tribal members
who turn up missing or murdered.
I became chairwoman for the Sexual Assault Prevention Subcommittee
where we passed a federal law to ensure permanent funding
for the Amber Alert system across tribal communities.
In 2017, I was blessed by the Navajo Times to be named Person of the Year.
But I'm even more proud of the fact
that there are now three women on the council.
Change can happen.
Oprah, thank you for lighting up my darkest days.
You taught me that all of the little sharp edges and broken pieces of our past
don't blow away in the wind.
[together] "But they can be formed into armor
and protect us for the next battle."
That is a powerful sentence.
Thank you for all of these lessons
and for being the warrior that you are.
[inhales] Okay, Amber. All right.
[Oprah] I know that we're all on the same quest.
We all just want to reach whatever level of best life experience
we feel we could create for ourselves.
So, to be able to help people to lean into that,
to recognize that for themselves, uh,
that was my offering every day.
I learned so much from The Oprah Show, all those years.
It was like my daily therapy in front of millions of people.
-[cheering] -[man] Oprah Winfrey!
[Oprah] But after 25 years,
there was nothing left to say that we hadn't already said.
That's when I knew it was time to go.
[cheering, applause]
It is no coincidence that I always wanted to be a teacher,
and I ended up in the world's biggest classroom.
And this, my friends, will be our last class from this stage.
[Oprah] I ended up in life giving what I most needed for myself.
Because I didn't get the love that I believed I deserved,
I used the platform to try to give it to every person I encountered.
And the irony of it all is...
[exhales]
for a little girl who grew up not feeling loved...
I have felt really, truly embraced and loved
by people whom I've never met.
From you whose names I will never know, I learned what love is.
You and this show have been the great love of my life.
[Oprah] From the time I started in Chicago,
the first question to me was,
"How do I figure out a way to give some of this back?"
[woman reporter] Oprah is giving 150 South African girls
a chance for a brighter future.
Her school for girls opened in Africa
fulfilling a long-cherished dream and a promise to Nelson Mandela.
[cheering]
[Oprah] Growing up as a little girl,
my sense of value, my sense of worth came from school.
School became my lifeline.
This has been a long time coming.
This is not just for me, um, you know, some small idea.
This is a supreme moment of destiny for me.
A girls' school in South Africa
was a way for me to empower these young girls,
who have grown up in an environment where they believe they're nothing,
they have no access to anybody or anything,
get them away from that
and show them a whole nother way of being in the world.
I'm looking at my own face, my own life, when I look at them.
They're postapartheid South Africa. I'm postapartheid Mississippi.
[woman and Oprah] Dear Momma O,
My name is Thando.
I was born in Mpumalanga, South Africa...
a place where girls who look like me
don't grow up with too many dreams.
My parents were very poor.
We could barely afford to eat, let alone pay for school.
But at an early age, my grandmother stepped in.
She took me to Johannesburg,
where she lived in the back room of her employer's house.
She could barely read or write,
yet somehow she knew the importance of a good education.
She worked as much as she could,
eventually, going into debt to pay for my tuition.
[girl] My grandmother takes care of me.
My grandmother is my inspiration.
She does everything. She borrows money from her friends.
She struggles to pay my school fees.
And she gets into financial trouble.
Sometimes I think it's all because of me. [voice breaks]
[Thando] But one day I was told about a new private school for girls,
started by Oprah Winfrey.
It sounded too good to be true,
but I still applied.
[young Thando] If I work hard, I think I will achieve my dreams.
I see myself living the life I've always dreamt
with a family of my own,
with my grandmother, of course,
being as generous and kind as my grandmother.
-Hello? -[woman] Hello, Thando.
Hello.
-It's Oprah Winfrey, how are you? -Fine and you?
I wanted to tell you that you are accepted in the school.
Yeah! Whoo!
I made it into the school!
[shrieking]
When I first came to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls...
I thought I was dreaming.
I was given a laptop, food, clothes and books.
I could play any sport, and I loved my classes.
I even received a full scholarship.
My grandmother would never have to worry about paying my tuition again.
It was the best year of my life.
But when I was in tenth grade,
I was told by my grandmother that my mother had contracted AIDS.
I planned to visit her in the hospital a couple of days later.
But before I was able to...
she passed away.
Even though my grandmother mostly raised me,
my mother was my best friend.
[sighs]
[Thando] I was heartbroken, lost. I didn't know if I could go on.
But thankfully, I was not alone.
Because you, Momma O,
you were there.
You came into my room...
and sat on my little bed for hours.
You watched me cry.
You hugged me.
You imparted your wisdom,
telling me that adversity gives us strength...
and we would not be who we are without it.
You didn't leave until you knew I was okay.
That meant the world to me.
When I graduated from the academy, I left as a leader
with a strong sense of purpose and self.
Es allí donde aprendí a soñar y a soñar en grande.
Sabía la importancia del trabajo que hiciste.
Y me conmovió querer ser periodista.
Mi objetivo es compartir historias de otros,
reunir a las personas y abrir caminos de conversación
que fomentan la empatía y, por supuesto, inspiran a las personas,
de la misma manera que me inspiraste.
[exhala] Esa es una buena carta.
[Oprah] Lo que vive y respira conmigo
es algo que Maya Angelou dijo después de que abrí mi escuela.
Ella estaba haciendo galletas.
Le dije: "Maya, será mi mayor legado, esta escuela".
Y ella dejó la masa y dijo ...
"No tienes idea de cuál será tu legado".
Le dije: "No, no, no. No entiendes. La escuela, las chicas van a estar ..."
Y ella dice: "Le dije: 'No tienes idea de cuál será tu legado'".
porque tu legado es cada vida que has tocado ".
Gracias mamá O.
No sería la persona que soy hoy sin ti.
Amor Thando
Con profunda admiración, Daniel Blackman.
Gracias Mary Kay.
[en idioma Navajo] Con toda mi gratitud, gracias.
Amber Kanazbah Crotty.
Sinceramente, Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green.