Oprah_ A Biography Part 23

Deeply affected by the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Oprah wanted to a.s.sume her humanitarian role. "We are...grieved by Princess Diana's death," she said on The Today Show, explaining Oprah's Angel Network, "and the world was talking about explaining Oprah's Angel Network, "and the world was talking about what she did charitably--and I wanted people to know, you can do that yourself in your own s.p.a.ce where you are in your life....You can be a princess...by taking what you have and extending it to other people."

Oprah partnered her Angel Network with 10,000 volunteers from Habitat for Humanity to build 205 houses, one in every city whose local television station broadcast The Oprah Winfrey Show. When Habitat for Humanity built a house for Oprah's Angel When Habitat for Humanity built a house for Oprah's Angel Network, they called the project Oprah's Angel House, and after the tsunami of 2004 and the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Oprah Angel Houses sprang up like mushrooms.

She took her show to New Orleans, pledging $10 million of her own money, and from 2005 to 2006 she raised $11 million more through her Angel Network for rebuilding. She paid the operating expenses of Oprah's Angel Network so that all donations went directly to the charities she selected. By 2008, her viewers had contributed more than $70 million to 172 projects around the world that focused on women, children, and families; education and literacy; relief and recovery; and youth and community development--all selected by Oprah and donated in her name. She fully understood the goodwill that accrues to those who give, and so when she gave, she did so very publicly. Her philanthropy was not quiet or anonymous.

"She certainly makes an effort to do good deeds," Steve Johnson wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "even if there is often an accompanying effort to make the effort "even if there is often an accompanying effort to make the effort known." It is true that most of Oprah's giving was followed by an Oprah press release, plus mentions on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, but perhaps she was setting an example for but perhaps she was setting an example for others to follow and not just being self-aggrandizing.

In recent years she tried to position her initial efforts as unheralded. "Early on in my career, when I first came to Chicago, I had my own Big Sisters club where myself and the producers would go into the projects," she told TelevisionWeek. TelevisionWeek. "Didn't tell "Didn't tell anybody about it. It wasn't publicized." Actually, she mentioned the Big Sisters club in almost all of her interviews at the time.

That effort began with a 1985 show taped in Cabrini Green, a low-income housing project on Chicago's Near North Side, known as one of the most dangerous bullet-strewn ghettos in the country. Mary Kay Clinton, the a.s.sociate producer of the show, was so moved by the young girls she met that she started a Little Sisters program in conjunction with a Cabrini Green counselor, and Oprah and her staff partic.i.p.ated as Big Sisters. There was great enthusiasm at first as the Harpo group met with the youngsters, ten to thirteen years old, every two weeks. Arriving in her limousine, Oprah would gather the girls from their ghetto apartments to go shopping or to the movies or out to dinner. When Mike Wallace came to Chicago to do a 60 Minutes 60 Minutes segment on her, segment on her, Oprah invited the Little Sisters for a slumber party at her condominium.

WALLACE: Oprah doesn't just make speeches to young people. She wanted to do more to help young black girls, so she and the women on her staff formed a "Little Sister"

group with youngsters from one of Chicago's housing projects. In order to be able to stay in the group, there are two basic rules: You must do well in school and you can't get pregnant.

Camera shows Oprah with the group in pajamas, giggling and talking.

WALLACE: They get together several times a month. This night at a pajama party in Oprah's living room....Along with the laughing, there is always something serious, something new to learn, some way for the kids to stretch their horizons....And always there is mention of G.o.d.

Oprah tried to do with the Cabrini Green girls what Vernon had done with her: take them to the library and make them read books. She gave them dictionaries and ordered them to learn five new words a day. She lectured them: "I was like a lot of you. I was a hot little momma." She told Ms. Ms. magazine, "I shoot a very straight shot. 'Get magazine, "I shoot a very straight shot. 'Get pregnant and I'll break your face! Don't tell me you want to do great things in your life and still not be able to tell a boy no. You want something to love and to hug, tell me and I'll buy you a puppy.'

"When we talk about goals and they say they want Cadillacs, I say, 'If you cannot talk correctly, if you cannot read or do math, if you become pregnant, if you drop out of school, you will never have a Cadillac. I guarantee it! And if you get D's or F's on your report card, you're out of this group. Don't tell me you want to do great things in your life, if all you carry to school is a radio!' "

Even then Oprah was aware of the steep odds. "One girl on the Cabrini Green show said her goal was to have lots of babies, so she'd get more money from welfare....We have twenty-four in our group. Maybe we'll save two."

The group did not last long. After Oprah's show went national, she said she no longer had the time, energy, or resources to shoulder a program that she felt needed more structure. "What happened was that when we took the girls out we would do nice things, good things, fun things...[but] what I realized was that those things were just activities.

Good things to do but just activities....I wasn't really able to deeply impact the way the girls thought about themselves. So I failed."

Oprah withdrew from personal involvement in her giving, but she continued writing checks and making fund-raising speeches and appearances for worthy causes.

From what is available in the public record--Harpo press releases, plus Oprah's interviews with newspapers and magazines--one learns the following: * In 1986 she earned $10 million and donated $13,000 to buy a mile in the fourthousand-mile chain of hand-holding across America to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness in what was promoted as "the largest number of celebrities ever a.s.sembled." Oprah told Time, Time, "My mile will be for people who can't afford the $10 "My mile will be for people who can't afford the $10 [standing fee]. No rich people in my mile."

* In 1987 she earned $31 million and donated $10,000 to the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Chicago and $50,000 to the Vernon Winfrey Scholars.h.i.+ps at TSU, for which she would contribute $770,000 over eight years.

* In 1988 she earned $37 million and donated her Revlon fee of $100,000 to Chicago's Corporate/Community Schools of America. She wrote a check for $2,000 for the Special Olympics and one for $7,000 to provide hot meals for elderly citizens in Alexandra, South Africa, which she continued for three years. For this she received the National Conference of Christians and Jews Humanitarian Award for her "involvement in a college scholars.h.i.+p program and humanitarian aid to South Africa."

* In 1989 she earned $55 million and wrote a check for $1 million to Morehouse College for the Oprah Winfrey Scholars, to which she'd contributed $12 million by 2004.

She also gave $25,000 to Chicago's House of the Good Shepherd, a shelter for battered and abused women; $10,000 to Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, which provides services for the city's poor; $25,000 to the Corporate/Community Schools of America; $1,000 to the Purple Heart Cruise; $40,000 to the combined benefit of the Southern Christian Leaders.h.i.+p Conference (SCLC) and the National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); $100,000 to the Rape Treatment Center, Santa Monica, California. In addition, she raised $1 million for victims of Hurricane Hugo during her show from Charleston, South Carolina.

* In 1990 she earned $68 million and wrote checks for $20,000 to the B. Robert Lewis House in Eagan, Minnesota, to open a shelter for battered women; $25,000 to Art Against AIDS/Chicago. In addition, she generated more than $1 million in public donations for the World Summit for Children and UNICEF after a show devoted to the plight of starving children. She pledged $500,000 over two years to the Chicago Academy for the Arts and bought all the Broadway opening night tickets (954 seats) for August Wilson's The Piano Lesson The Piano Lesson to benefit A Better Chance, or ABC, which provides to benefit A Better Chance, or ABC, which provides scholars.h.i.+ps to the best schools for students of color who are disadvantaged but academically able. She also flew Nelson Mandela's daughter and son-in-law from Boston to South Africa to witness her father's release from prison after twenty-seven years.

Oprah's publicist told the Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Sun-Times that Mandela wanted to avoid "his children that Mandela wanted to avoid "his children sitting around idle for three or four days while they waited for him to be released." In a prime-time television salute, Bob Hope presented Oprah with the America's Hope Award for "her career achievements and her humanitarian endeavors." She was so grateful for the celebrity tribute that she sent Hope a bouquet of roses every week until his death in 2003.

* In 1991 she earned $80 million and wrote checks for $100,000 to buy books for the Harold Was.h.i.+ngton Library in Chicago, $50,000 to the Rev. Cecil Williams's Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, and $1,000 to the Purple Heart Cruise.

* In 1992 she earned $88 million and wrote a check for $50,000 to the LaPorte County Child Abuse Prevention Council in Indiana, near her farm, and $30,000 to Every Woman's Place, a women's shelter in Muskegon, Michigan. She also donated twenty Dakota adapters for deaf students for closed-caption TV shows.

* In 1993 she earned $98 million, and after filming There Are No Children Here There Are No Children Here in the Chicago projects, she donated her $500,000 salary to endow scholars.h.i.+ps for lowincome children in the Henry Horner Homes through a foundation she named "There Are No Children Here." She gave $50,000 to the Holy Family Preservation Society, one of Chicago's oldest churches, and $1 million to the city's predominantly African American Providence-St. Mel School. "The money will go towards setting up scholars.h.i.+ps for disadvantaged children," she told reporters.

* In 1994 she earned $105 million and donated her $10,000 award from the Council on Women's Issues in Chicago to Providence-St. Mel. She held her first charity auction of her clothes and raised $150,000, which she divided between Hull House in Chicago and FamiliesFirst in Sacramento. More important, she felt financially secure enough to begin engaging again in her giving. This time she made a gesture that captured the country's attention: she would single-handedly stop the cycle of poverty in America.

She held a press conference to say that she would start in Chicago by setting up a foundation called Families for a Better Life, with the intention of moving one hundred families out of the projects and into private housing, giving them job training, health care, financial counseling, educational a.s.sistance, and $30,000 in financial aid for two years.

She pledged $6 million to her program. "I want to destroy the welfare mentality, the belief in victimization," she said.

Oprah had no sympathy for welfare recipients and frequently berated them. "I was a welfare daughter, just like you....How did you let yourselves become welfare mothers?

Why did you choose this? I didn't." The women looked ashamed that they were not good enough to be accepted by Oprah. "When Welfare Warriors, a Milwaukee group of activist moms in poverty, were invited to appear [on one of her welfare shows], we accepted...despite our anger at Oprah's betrayal of African American moms in poverty and her frequent attacks on all moms who receive welfare," wrote Pat Gowens, editor of Mother Warriors Voice. "Her contempt for impoverished mothers actually increased "Her contempt for impoverished mothers actually increased Welfare Warriors' members.h.i.+p when African American moms joined specifically to picket Oprah. (A typical Oprah a.s.sault on a welfare mom in her audience: 'But you sit home with your feet up collecting that monthly check.')."

Oprah promised there would be no government red tape involved in her Families for a Better Life program, to be run by Jane Addams Hull House a.s.sociation, one of the oldest settlement houses in the nation. She also said she would use her considerable influence to get other corporations, inst.i.tutions, and foundations to follow her example.

"It's a war zone," she told Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly. "We have to get them out. We're "We have to get them out. We're giving them bootstraps." Within months, Random House, Inc., and Capital Cities ABC each contributed $500,000 to Oprah's foundation.

"No one makes it alone," she said. "Everyone who has achieved any level of success in life was able to do so because something or someone served as a beacon to light the way. What seems to be an endless cycle of generational poverty and despair can be broken if each of us is willing to be a light to the other. When you learn, teach. When you get, give. That is how you change the world. One life, one family at a time."

She had arrived at this momentous decision after filming There Are No Children There Are No Children Here, based on the book by Alex Kotlowitz about a family who lived in one of Chicago's based on the book by Alex Kotlowitz about a family who lived in one of Chicago's most violent housing projects. "Originally ABC wanted Diana Ross to play my part [but]

Diana said she didn't want to do it because it didn't offer enough hope. I felt the book was reality," said Oprah, who canceled her vacation in the south of France to a.s.sume the role.

"There's always hope," she said. "I didn't grow up in the projects, but I am the perfect example of someone who came up from zip. I mean zippola. Mrs. Outhouse herself here."

During filming she met a youngster named Calvin Mitch.e.l.l, ten, who captured her heart. He lived in the projects with his four brothers and sisters and their mother, Eva, who was on welfare. After the movie, he visited Oprah at her office every week, and she took him to her farm on weekends, buying him clothes and shoes. Finally she asked her fiance, "How would you feel about Calvin moving in?"

"If you are willing to move in the whole family," said Stedman, a board member of the Jane Addams Hull House a.s.sociation. He explained that such a commitment had to be for the entire family, not just for one family member.

"Although I thought about it, Calvin did not move into my house," Oprah said.

"We got his mother a job. We're teaching her life skills like opening a bank account, living on a budget and we moved them out of the project."

Together Oprah and Stedman worked on a plan for Families for a Better Life Foundation that they believed would eradicate the welfare dependency of the country's most impoverished families. "Stedman was the catalyst for this," Oprah told People. People. "He "He is a systems man and I was inspired by his guidance. And this project together, it's like we sing. We just really sing." Their approach relied on the tenets of self-improvement guru Stephen Covey, whose leaders.h.i.+p center helped train the Hull House staff. Covey later wrote the foreword to Stedman's self-improvement book, You Can Make It Happen. You Can Make It Happen.

Having lifted one family out of the projects, Oprah now wanted to lift one hundred families out, but by calling so much media attention to her announcement she had conveyed the impression to Chicago's welfare recipients that she was going to buy their way out of poverty. Hull House received more than thirty thousand calls, which were winnowed to sixteen hundred applicants, but the misconception of a free house remained so prevalent that application forms had to be rewritten to specify, "We will not buy a home for you."

Having started at the same time the Clinton administration was trying to reform the welfare system, Oprah's experiment was watched closely and with great hope. She became actively involved in every aspect, helping to select the partic.i.p.ating families and develop their eight-week curriculum. She partic.i.p.ated in the counseling sessions and closely monitored their progress. But after spending $843,000 over eighteen months and seeing only paperwork, she abruptly folded the foundation and issued a terse public statement: "I felt myself turning into government. I spent nearly a million dollars on the program, most of it going to development and administrative costs. That was never my intention. I now want to figure out, with the help of people who understand this better than I, how to directly reach the families in a way that allows them to become selfreliant."

She refused to give any interviews about why she'd canceled the program and she demanded absolute silence from everyone a.s.sociated with it, including personnel from Hull House and the partic.i.p.ating families. There was never a report issued or a cost a.n.a.lysis published, and for this she was severely criticized by philanthropists who prize accountability as a curative force. "The problem with Families for a Better Life was not that it failed but that it was a wholly unconstructive failure that provided no systematic knowledge about the transition from welfare to work," wrote Peter J. Frumkin in Strategic Giving: The Art and Science of Philanthropy. Formerly with Harvard, the Formerly with Harvard, the professor of public affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service faulted Oprah for being so secretive and protective of her image. He felt her welfare-to-work experiment was too important not to be shared with those who remained committed to making progress on the issue. "There should be no stigma attached to constructive failure that builds knowledge...[but] heavily funded initiatives that end in unconstructive failure like Winfrey's deserve all the criticism they presently receive and more....There is no excuse for being both ineffective and unaccountable."

Oprah did not feel she owed anything to anybody. With the exception of the donations from Random House, Inc., and Capital Cities ABC, she had funded Families for a Better Life Foundation by herself, and she was not about to finance a public report on its failure. As she had earlier told the graduates of Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, in her commencement address, "Know this--if you make a choice and come to realize that that choice is not the right one, you always have the right to change your mind, without guilt." She folded both her foundations, There Are No Children Here and Families for a Better Life. Then she started another one, named For a Better Life. She put Rufus Williams, a senior manager for Harpo, in charge of its operations. In the years between 1996 and 2000, she changed For a Better Life Foundation to the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, to encompa.s.s most of her charitable giving, and her largest contributions went to the Oprah Winfrey Scholars at Morehouse, the Oprah Winfrey Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko, and Oprah's Angel Network, which she promoted on her show for viewer donations. She had no intention of throwing off the humanitarian mantle of Princess Diana, and despite Professor Frumkin, she was not about to acknowledge any mistakes that might diminish her role as an inspired leader.

In fact, Oprah considered herself and Stedman to be such enlightened leaders that they teamed up to teach a course at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, t.i.tled Dynamics of Leaders.h.i.+p. "It has been a dream of mine to teach,"

she told Jet, Jet, "and Stedman and I share the same beliefs in the importance of dynamic "and Stedman and I share the same beliefs in the importance of dynamic leaders.h.i.+p in this country."

The university was thrilled by its new adjunct teacher. "The feedback we're getting from MBA students has been phenomenal," said Rich Honack, a.s.sistant dean and director of marketing and communications in 1999, "because she is truly admired, especially by the women and minority students, who see her as someone who has made it." Oprah insisted that no press be allowed on campus during her weekly Tuesday night cla.s.ses, and each of the 110 students selected for the course had to present a special identification card and be checked by four security guards before he or she was admitted to the cla.s.sroom. University officials warned that any student talking to reporters would be subject to disciplinary action, which could lead to expulsion. The extreme security precautions prompted the student newspaper, also barred admission, to accuse the university of censors.h.i.+p. Oprah arrived on campus each week in her own black security van with bulletproof windows, accompanied by her own bodyguards.

She and Stedman taught their leaders.h.i.+p course for two fall semesters, and Oprah sent her plane to bring in guest lecturers such as Coretta Scott King, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

"I was Stedman's guest the evening Kissinger spoke to their cla.s.s," recalled Fran Johns, a Chicago businesswoman. "Kissinger had come as a favor for Oprah....We were sitting behind the students when Oprah came running up the steps. 'Wait. Wait,' she yelled to Kissinger. 'I can't see.' She sat down next to me and kept saying throughout his lecture, 'Isn't he great? Isn't he great?' I'm thinking to myself, 'Great? He's a murderer, a creep, Machiavellian...but he's an interesting speaker because he's got all these incredible inside stories about things.' "

Oprah was so grateful to Kissinger that she commissioned an oil painting of his Labrador and flew to Connecticut to personally present it. "The dog unveiling took place one weekend when Isaac and I were in the country [Connecticut] and the Kissingers invited us over," recalled Mrs. Isaac Stern, widow of the famed violinist. "Isaac went and met Oprah. I stayed home and took a nap."

Having steeped herself in the legacy of slavery to film Beloved, Beloved, Oprah now Oprah now became even more committed to helping African American children. Years later she explained her commitment: "The reason I spend so much of my money on educating young black children--$10 million to A Better Chance, which takes inner-city children out of the ghetto and puts them in private schools--is because I know that lives will then forever be changed." While heavily publicized, Oprah's giving in the early years of her career was minimal--less than 10 percent of her incredible income. In 1998 she began increasing her charitable contributions and making more sizeable donations to her charitable foundation: YearEstimated Net Worth (Forbes) (million $) Estimated Income (Forbes) (million $) Contributions to the Oprah Winfrey Foundation (IRS).

($) 1998 675 12511,323,201 1999 725 1250 2000 800 15015,020,932 2001 900 1998 675 12511,323,201 1999 725 1250 2000 800 15015,020,932 2001 900.

1508,000,000 2002 975 15028,038,583 2003 1,000 18043,657,831 2004 1,100.

21045,000,000 2005 1,300 22535,978,502 2006 1,400 2250 2007 1,500 26043,000,000.

Total230,019,049 Oprah's polestar for giving was Nelson Mandela, whom she had met through Stedman after he accompanied Mandela's daughter and son-in-law to South Africa for her father's release from prison on Robben Island. Although she had financed that trip in 1990, she did not meet Mandela until 2000. By then he had received the 1993 n.o.bel Peace Prize with Frederik Willem de Klerk for their efforts in uniting South Africa after years of apartheid. The following year, Mandela was elected the first black president of the country and served until 1999. When he left office he toured the United States to raise money for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, dedicated to educating his country's children.

"It's not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education," he said. "Those who do not believe this have small imaginations."

During his U.S. visit he appeared on Oprah's show, on November 27, 2000, and when he arrived for the taping, all three hundred employees lined the hallway at Harpo to shake his hand. "It was the interview of a lifetime," Oprah said later. When she visited South Africa she asked Mandela what gift she could give him and his country. He said, "Build me a school," and she agreed. His gift to her was a drawing of hands that he had done in prison. "She has lots of art in her home," recalled former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "When I was visiting my friend Mary Dell Pritzlaff, her next-door neighbor in Montecito, Oprah heard I was there and insisted we both come for dinner....It was a wonderful evening and Oprah was delightful....What I loved most were the four hands she had framed and hanging on one wall. They were drawn by Nelson Mandela during his time on Robben Island."

Before Oprah embraced the project that would lead to the Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy for Girls, she embarked on another project for Mandela and began planning "A Christmas Kindness" for fifty thousand South African children. She a.s.sembled a team of staff members from the Oprah Winfrey Foundation and Harpo, and a few personal friends, and they worked with the Nelson Mandela Foundation for a year to make Christmas 2002 memorable for youngsters who had never received presents. She said she did this because she remembered when she was a child and her mother, on welfare, could not afford to provide Christmas for her children.

"My sadness wasn't so much about not having toys as it was about facing my cla.s.smates," recalled Oprah. "What would I say when the other kids asked what I'd gotten? That Christmas, three nuns showed up at our house with a doll, fruit, and games for us. I felt such a relief that I'd been given something, that I wasn't forgotten. That somebody had thought enough of me to bring me a gift."

Oprah spoke with orphanage caretakers in South Africa about gifts that would be culturally appropriate. "I was told none of these children had ever seen a black doll--most were dragging around blond, naked Barbies. Wouldn't it be a wonder if each girl could see herself in the eyes of a doll that looked like her? It became my pa.s.sion and mission to give a black doll to every girl I met."

She spent the summer of 2002 choosing presents for the children. "I got a thrill out of seeing 127 sample dolls filling my office. After I'd picked the one I would have wanted when I was a girl, I called up the manufacturer and asked that its barely brown dolls be double-dipped to darken them. We chose soccer b.a.l.l.s for the boys, solarpowered radios for the teens and jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts for everyone. And I wanted every child to receive a pair of sneakers. In South Africa, where many of the children walk around barefoot in the blistering sun, shoes are gold."

Oprah financed the flights for herself, Stedman, Gayle, and thirty-seven employees, with all their technical equipment to film the events for future shows, plus three hundred thousand Christmas presents that her staff had spent months wrapping. Her first stop was Johannesburg, where she distributed presents to children in schools and orphanages. She traveled to Qunu, the rural village of Nelson Mandela, where he played the role of Father Christmas and helped her give gifts to sixty-five hundred children who had walked miles to meet the man they called Madiba, Mandela's tribal name. At each stop Oprah's staff set up party tents filled with bubbles, carnival music, jesters, and more food than these children had ever seen.

Oprah said her Christmas Kindness, which she filmed for her show, had transformed her life. "It cost me $7 million but it was the best Christmas I ever had."

During those three weeks she was overwhelmed by the number of orphans she saw who had become parentless because of AIDS, and before she left South Africa she had adopted ten children, ages seven to fourteen, who had no one to care for them. "I knew I couldn't save all the children, but I could manage to stay personally engaged with these ten," she said. "I enrolled them in a private boarding school and hired caretakers to look after them."

Oprah justified her long-distance parenting because of her career. "I didn't bring these kids over here [because] my lifestyle is not such that I could devote all my time to them and that is what would need to happen." A continent away, she could hardly be a mother, but she became a generous benefactor. "Every Christmas I returned with gobs of presents," she said. In 2006 she bought her ten "children" a big house and hired a decorator to personalize each of their bedrooms. But when she returned the following year she was dismayed to find them riveted to their $500 RAZR cell phones and talking about their portable PlayStations, iPods, sneakers, and hair extensions. "I knew immediately that I'd given them too much," she said, "without instilling values to accompany the gifts." The following year she did not give them "gobs of presents."

Instead she made them choose a family as impoverished as they had once been and spend their holiday doing something kind for others.

Before Oprah left South Africa in 2002, she broke ground on the site that would eventually become the Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy for Girls. "This time I will not fail," she said. She returned home and started to do her homework on how to build the finest girls' prep school on the planet, for that's exactly what she had in mind. "This school will be an example to the world," she said.

Through her involvement with A Better Chance, Oprah sent her niece Chrishaunda Lee to Miss Porter's School, an elite, almost all-white girls' school in Farmington, Connecticut, that had graduated Gloria Vanderbilt, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Ona.s.sis, and Barbara Hutton, the debutante dubbed America's "poor little rich girl." Oprah had been so impressed by the change in her niece after Chrishaunda attended Miss Porter's School that she established the Oprah Winfrey Prep School Scholars, and through the years contributed more than $2 million to scholars.h.i.+ps.

To fund her own school she started the Oprah Winfrey Operating Foundation, later changed to the Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy Foundation, which she financed herself. Initially she pledged $10 million, but by completion, the project would cost more than $40 million. Plans escalated from "a nice boarding school to a world-cla.s.s boarding school for girls," said Dianne Hudson, who coordinated the effort.

YearEstimated Net Worth (Forbes) (million $) Estimated Income (Forbes) (million $) Contributions to the Oprah Winfrey Operating Foundation/ Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy Foundation (IRS).

($) 2002 975 15018,000,000 2003 1,000 1800 2004 1,100 2105,000,000 2005 1,300 2002 975 15018,000,000 2003 1,000 1800 2004 1,100 2105,000,000 2005 1,300.

22511,030,000 2006 1,400 22550,200,737 2007 1,500 26033,130,055 Total Total117,360,792 Oprah continued researching other prep schools, including the Young Women's Leaders.h.i.+p Charter School of Chicago and the SEED School of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. She also sought advice from Christel DeHaan, a philanthropist from Indianapolis who quietly built schools for poor children around the world.

By this time Oprah had developed very definite views on education, especially in U.S. public schools, which she was not shy about sharing. After doing two shows on the country's troubled educational system, one t.i.tled "Oprah's Special Report: American Schools in Crisis," she considered herself well versed in the subject. So much so that on a visit to Baltimore, she p.r.o.nounced that city's school system an "atrocity."

In an interview with WBAL-TV, Oprah said, "What is going on [here] is a crime to the children of this city. It's a crime. It's a crime that people can't figure out." She added that she had considered making a charitable donation to Baltimore's public school system but decided it would be throwing good money after bad. "What I've learned from my philanthropic giving is that unless you can create sustainability, then it's a waste. You might as well pee it out." She also said she had discussed the city's "atrocity" with Nelson Mandela. "I was actually sitting in his house telling him about the black male situation here in Baltimore," she said, citing (inaccurately) a 76 percent high-school dropout rate among black males. "He did not believe me."

Neither did the Baltimore City School Board, which tried to set the record straight. "We need to be Dr. Phil and counter with the facts," said Anirban Basu, a school board member, who corrected the high-school dropout rate to 50 percent (not 76 percent) of Baltimore's black males.

Oprah's diatribe was met with a tepid response from city officials, who seemed afraid to tangle with someone of her wealth and high regard. "I think she's not aware of the progress that has been made here," said the mayor, Martin O'Malley. "I'm sure it was not malicious on her part."

The Sun was not so diplomatic. Stating that the problems of all inner-city schools was not so diplomatic. Stating that the problems of all inner-city schools are rooted in poverty, Dan Rodricks wrote, "High concentrations of poor children in schools is a formula for failure, and that's been studied and proved. Poor families have few choices, so they're stuck." He suggested that Oprah, who got her start in Baltimore, "hock a couple of rings or some shoes" and donate to the local chapter of the Children's Scholars.h.i.+p Fund, which provides partial scholars.h.i.+ps for poor children. "I think you know about this. If not, ask Stedman...he sits on the organization's national board....Think Baltimore children are being deprived of a good education, Oprah? Write a check."

But Oprah had already committed her millions to poor young girls in South Africa, where the high-school graduation rate was 76 percent in some places. She preferred to make a difference among high-achieving students there than to lowachieving students in America, where she said poor children did not appreciate education.

"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there. If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys.

They ask for uniforms so they can go to school."

Through Oprah's Angel Network she began directing more and more of the monies she collected from her viewers to South Africa. An a.n.a.lysis of IRS returns from 2003 through 2007 indicates that nearly 10 percent of the donations she generated from others went to that country: YearOrganization to Benefit South AfricaOprah's Angel Network Contribution ($) 2003Chris Hani Independent School, Cape Town30,0002003Friends of South African 2003Chris Hani Independent School, Cape Town30,0002003Friends of South African Schools, Greenwich, Connecticut1,5002003 2005.

2006 Kids Haven (orphanage), Guateng Province3,000 262,000.

350,000 2003Place of Faith hospice, Hatfield3,0002003READ Educational Trust, Johannesburg19,6432003 2007 Salvation Army-Carl Silhole Social Centre, Johannesburg150,000 $25 2003Thembalethu Home-based Care, Mpumalanga Province3,0002004 2005.

2006.

2007 Seven Fountains Primary School, KwaZulu-Natal Province250,000 1,750,074.

4,353.

757,204 2004South Africa Fund (Gauteng, Cape Town, and the Sankonthshe Valley)30,9752004South Africa Uniforms (seven provinces)1,000,0002005Africa Gift Fund2692005 G.o.d's Golden Acre (orphanage), KwaZulu-Natal Province25,0002005 2006.

2007 Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry, Johannesburg180,000 35,308.

250,000 2005Inst.i.tute of Training and Education for Capacity-Building (ITEC) (scholars.h.i.+p), East London13,0002005 2006 Saphela Care and Support, KwaZulu-Natal Province10,800 362 2005Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Johannesburg25,0002006Children in Distress Network (CINDI), KwaZulu-Natal Province5,0002006CIDA (Community and Individual Development a.s.sociation) City Campus, Johannesburg150,0002006Ukukhula Project (for children of AIDS victims), Hatfield32,0252006 2007 Western Cape Networking HIV/AIDS Community of South Africa (NACOSA)50 240,000 2007Mpilonhle (education and AIDS prevention), KwaZulu-Natal Province297,3802007Teach South Africa Conference345Total5,879,313 Oprah had fallen in love with Africa, and the continent became her new criteria for judging people. When she and Gayle attended the wedding of Scott Sanders and his partner, Gayle offered a toast to the couple. She said Oprah had given her the invitation list for the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Academy in South Africa and mentioned she was inviting Sanders, the producer of The Color Purple--The Musical. The Color Purple--The Musical. Gayle said that she Gayle said that she had asked, "Is he Africa-worthy?" Oprah a.s.sured her that Sanders was indeed "Africaworthy." Gayle's compliment, well-meant, seemed awkward and unkind in front of Alice Walker, who wrote The Color Purple, The Color Purple, and was officiating as the minister marrying and was officiating as the minister marrying Sanders, because she had not been deemed worthy to be invited to the opening of Oprah's school.

Newly enthralled with her African roots, Oprah imagined herself a descendant of Zulu warriors. "I always wondered what it would be like if it turned out I am a South African," she told a crowd of thirty-two hundred people attending her "Live Your Best Life" seminar in Johannesburg. "I feel so at home here. Do you know that I actually am one? I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu." At that point she had not yet received the results from Henry Louis ("Skip") Gates, Jr., who was having her mitochondrial DNA tested for a PBS show t.i.tled Finding Oprah's Roots. Finding Oprah's Roots.

"If you tell me I'm not Zulu, I am going to be very upset," she warned him.

"When I'm in Africa, I always feel that I look Zulu. I feel connected to the Zulu tribe."

Gates looked nervous when he had to inform her that her ancestors were from Liberia, and Oprah looked crestfallen. She took no pride in being a.s.sociated with a country colonized by freed U.S. slaves. Gates had to stop filming for a few minutes, because he said Oprah needed to compose herself.

"Her face fell when she found out she was descended from Liberians and not Zulus," said Badi Foster, president of the Phelps Stokes fund, which focuses on strengthening communities in Africa and the Americas. "She now needs to mend her fences with Liberia and not be so dismissive....She flew Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf [first woman elected president of an African nation], to do her show but then she ignored her and spent all the time interviewing Queen Rania [of Jordan], the gorgeous young wife of King Abdullah."

From 2000 to 2006, Oprah battled South Africa's government to build her school on the twenty-two-acre site outside Johannesburg, on Henley-on-Klip, that had been recommended by the South African Department of Education. She did not like the initial designs because she said they looked like chicken coops or barracks. "Why would I build tin shacks for girls who come from tin shacks?" The government planners told her that African children sleep on dirt floors in huts with no water or electricity, or share mattresses with relatives, so even the simplest environment would be a luxury for them.

Oprah rejected their att.i.tude as well as their plans, and hired her own architects. "I am creating everything in this school that I would have wanted for myself so the girls will have the absolute best that my imagination can offer....This school will be a reflection of me." And so would its students--all little Oprahs. "Every girl has some form of 'it,' " she said, "some form of light that says 'I want it.' 'I can be successful.' 'I'm not my circ.u.mstances.' "

Oprah was determined to make the Oprah Winfrey Leaders.h.i.+p Academy for Girls her version of Miss Porter's School, wrapped up like the Ritz with a gymnasium, tennis courts, a beauty salon, a yoga studio, a wellness center, and a dining room with marbletopped tables, cloth napkins, and china, silver, and crystal, all of which she selected. She insisted on a six-hundred-seat amphitheater "for orators," because "in order to be a leader, you have to have a voice. To have a voice, you need oration." She demanded six labs, including two for science and one each for art, design, technology, and media. Each had to have the finest equipment, and her computer-filled cla.s.srooms had to have outdoor s.p.a.ce, even "a reading tree." All the dormitories had kitchens, and each room had a balcony with a large closet. "People asked me why it was important to have closet s.p.a.ce, and it's because [the girls] will have something," she said. "We plan to give them a chance to earn money to buy things. That's the only way to really teach them how to appreciate things." For the construction of the twenty-eight buildings on campus, Oprah chose bricks of soft gold sand and personally selected every tile, light fixture, and door handle. She stipulated a ten-thousand-volume library with a fireplace and little cubicles containing soft socks so the girls could curl up comfortably to read. She decorated all the living areas with scattered silk cus.h.i.+ons and real orchids. She chose two-hundred-threadcount sheets, white pillowcases embroidered with O, O, and fluffy duvets, all of which she and fluffy duvets, all of which she personally tested for luxury and comfort. She selected uniforms for the girls, five pairs of shoes, backpacks--even underwear. She designed a flag for her school and said she would teach leaders.h.i.+p cla.s.ses in person and by satellite. She commissioned artwork from five hundred South African artists and filled every building with baskets and paintings and beaded sculptures to reflect the country's rich tribal culture. Always concerned about security, she ordered double electric gates to be erected around the entrance of the school, with yards of electronic shock-effect fencing. A Venus Africa security van patrolled the grounds day and night, and no visitors were allowed inside, except families, and they were allowed only on specified weekends.

"Mum Oprah" vowed to build "the best school in the world" for the girls she now called "my daughters," and she promised to support them so they could attend any university of their choosing. She selected the first wave of 152 students (eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old) from 3,500 applicants, each of whom had superior grades and demonstrated leaders.h.i.+p potential. None came from families that made more than $787 a month, and most had lives ravaged by AIDS, rape, and disease. Some were orphans, and many lived on only a bowl of rice a day. "I know their story," said Oprah, "because it is my story."