Oprah Winfrey received the Cecil B. DeMille award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment” at the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 7, 2018.  

Winfrey’s speech was electrifying, beginning with her honoring Sidney Poitier, the first black man to win an Academy Award. She told the story of watching him win the award in 1964.

“Of course, his skin was black. I had never seen a black man being celebrated like that,” Winfrey said in her speech, “…he made history.”

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She then related his achievement to herself, the first black woman to receive the Cecil B. DeMille award.

She brought up the recent attacks on the media, saying, “We all know that the press is under siege these days; but, we also know that it is the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth, that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice.”

Going along with the 2018 Golden Globes theme, “Time’s Up,” where attendees dressed in black in support of women who have faced and are currently facing sexual harassment in the workplace, Winfrey told the story of Recy Taylor.

Taylor was a young black wife and mother, who was abducted and raped by six white men while walking home from church in 1944. Winfrey said her story was reported to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the lead investigator in the case was Rosa Parks. “Together, they sought justice,” Winfrey stated. However, they did not find justice in the Jim Crow era, and the men were never charged.

Winfrey said Taylor, who died about two weeks ago at the age of 97, lives on “with every woman who chooses to say ‘me too’ and every man who chooses to listen.”

Oprah said, “…but their [powerful, white men] time is up. Their time is up!” While the women and men listening cheered for Oprah and women alike, Winfrey continued, preaching of feminism empowerment.

At the end, she expressed a message to the young girls watching, saying, “a new day is on the horizon, and when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘me, too’ again.”