Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is known for so many things. There’s her long-running talk show “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” her OWN TV Network and, of course, her philanthropy and the massive giveaways.
Oprah’s philanthropy extends far beyond TV show giveaways. Her deep need to give back was inspired by a moment in Milwaukee. Writer Dean Robbins takes us back to Oprah’s best Christmas.
(A note to listeners: this story mentions abuse and suicide.)
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Before television stardom, Oprah Winfrey spent part of her childhood in Milwaukee. It was a rough time in her life, marred by poverty and abuse. And yet, at age 12, she experienced what she called her “best Christmas” at an apartment on North 10th Street: a miraculous event that set her on a path toward healing.
Oprah Winfrey’s sophomore year photo from the Nicolet High School yearbook in 1968. She attended the Glendale, Wisconsin school for one year before moving to Nashville. (Courtesy of Nicolet High School)
Winfrey grew up wearing potato-sack dresses in rural Mississippi with her grandmother. She moved to Milwaukee at age 6 to live with her mother, who barely made ends meet as a housemaid. The troubled child experienced sexual assault by two relatives and a family friend, got pregnant at 14, lost the baby and even contemplated taking her own life.
In the midst of this nightmare, Winfrey had her transformative Christmas. It started on a bleak note when her mother canceled the family celebration in 1966 due to lack of funds.
“I remember feeling like it’s really going to be hard on Christmas morning to go outside. You know, you go outside with your toys? What am I going to do when everybody else is outside?” Winfrey said years later on a 2003 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Just as despair set in, three nuns on a charitable mission knocked on the apartment door. They surprised the family by handing out toys to Oprah and her siblings as well as providing a turkey for Christmas dinner.
“That was the best Christmas of my life, because somebody remembered,” said Winfrey. “I wasn’t going to have to be the kid that said I got nothing.”
The memory stuck with Winfrey as she turned her life around in high school. Sent to live with her father in Nashville, she earned good grades, worked at a radio station, and won a college scholarship. At 19, she became Nashville’s first African American TV news anchor, then moved on to a Baltimore newscast.
Winfrey was off and running. In 1986, her daytime talk show began airing nationally.
With a down-to-earth persona and a dedication to personal growth, she quickly ascended to the American A-list: businesswoman, producer, author, actress, magazine publisher and network executive.
Winfrey’s Milwaukee Christmas directly inspired her philanthropy, including a 2002 South African initiative she called Christmas Kindness. She and her staff traveled around the country with 50,000 presents for orphaned and impoverished young people. Rather than simply writing a check, she arranged to personally hand gifts to the children with their names on them.
“I wanted to be able to look in each kid’s face and say to that child, ‘Somebody remembered you,’” said Winfrey.
Winfrey considered it the most rewarding experience of her life, for deeply personal reasons.
“It was my mission to do for them what the nuns had done for me,” she said on her 2003 show.
And so does one kind act in 1966 Milwaukee echo through the ages. Happy holidays, everybody.
Editor’s note: If you or anyone you know is in crisis, help is available. Dial 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
