Harvard awards 9 honorary degrees
Oprah Winfrey Doctor of Laws A beloved television icon and philanthropist, Oprah Winfrey rose from humble roots to create a global media empire, becoming one of America’s most respected and influential public figures in the process. Winfrey was born in 1954 to a single teenage mother in rural Mississippi, where she endured a poor and abusive childhood. After turning around a struggling Chicago talk show in the 1980s, she quickly garnered national attention and developed her own syndicated program. “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which ran from 1986 to 2011, topped the daytime talk show ratings for 24 consecutive seasons and revolutionized the genre. In 2011, Winfrey launched the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable channel that reaches two-thirds of American households. Her other holdings include the movie production company Harpo Films; Oprah Radio, a satellite radio channel on Sirius XM; Oprah.com, which now hosts Winfrey’s wildly successful book club; the daytime television production company Harpo...