National Museum Of African American History And Culture To Honor Oprah Winfrey With New Exhibit

Photo via: CBS News 

Oprah Winfrey is a business mogul, philanthropist and activist whose contributions to American history will now be recognized at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, reports The Washington Post.

Starting Friday and running through June 2019, the museum will showcase “Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture” to highlight the media titan’s monumental influence over her career. The exhibit will feature video clips, interview segments, movie costumes and personal photographs and journals that showcase how much of an impact Winfrey has had and is continuing to have on American society.

Museum curators Rhea L. Combs and Kathleen Kendrick worked with Winfrey and her team to put the exhibition together and to fact-check background information to ensure that everything is an accurate portrayal of the 64-year-old.

“We’re providing context for understanding not only who she is, but how she became a global figure, and how she is connected to broader stories and themes,” said Kendrick. 

The exhibit will include three sections with the first one detailing Winfrey’s humble childhood and early career journey in the 1950s and 60s. The middle section will look at her run with the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” which lasted for 25 years and was the highest-rated talk show in history. The third and last section will look at the media titan’s role as a cultural influencer through the movies she’s made, the books she’s promoted and her philanthropic work.

“There are so many issues about women, power, media, body image,” says museum director Lonnie G. Bunch III. “This should be a popular show because of the impact of this person, but it is also a show that allows us to think about what it means that a woman who doesn’t fit the TV look could build a media empire and become an entrepreneur.”