Oprah Winfrey: The Black Millionaire Blueprint for Success

Oprah Winfrey spent her first years living in rural poverty with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee. It has been said that Oprah was so poor she often wore dresses made of potato sacks. At age six 1/2, Winfrey moved to a Milwaukee inner city ghetto with her mother who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother. Winfrey has stated that she was raped by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend.

Despite her dysfunctional home life, Oprah skipped two of her earliest grades, became the teacher’s pet, and by the time she was thirteen received a scholarship to attend a prestigious all white high school in the suburbs. Around the time Oprah moved in, her mother had given birth to another daughter, Winfrey’s younger half-sister, Patricia.By 1962, her mother was having trouble raising two daughters so Oprah was sent to live in Nashville, Tennessee. While Winfrey was in Nashville, her mother gave birth to her third daughter. Oprah’s mother gave this daughter, up for adoption in the hope of easing the financial situation. Oprah did not learn she had a second half-sister until later on in her life after becoming successful. Oprah’s mother had also given birth to a boy named Jeffrey, a half-brother to Oprah.