Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was born to an impoverished teenage mother in rural Mississippi and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. Winfrey was raped at age 9 and became pregnant at 14. After being sent to live with the man she refers to as her father in Tennessee, Winfrey started working at a radio station in high school and was co-anchoring the local evening news by age 19. In 1983, she relocated to Chicago to host the morning talk show AM Chicago. Ratings for the show soared and it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and broadcast nationally. The show would become the highest-rated talk show in history. Today, Oprah is one of the richest and most influential African Americans, and women, in the world.