Accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Life Achievement award at the 75th Golden Globes, Oprah delivered a powerhouse speech to an almost silent room.
Oprah schooled the audience in history referencing Recy Taylor and expressing deep gratitude “to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue.”
But perhaps the biggest cheer in the room was heard after Oprah addressed the men who use their power to silence women with a warning, “their time is up.”
Here is the full transcript and video of her speech here:
In 1964 I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in Milwaukee watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th academy awards. She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history, ‘the winner is Sidney Poitier.’
Up to the stage came the most elegant man I had ever seen. I remember his tie was white and, of course, his skin was black. I had never seen a black man being celebrated like that. And I have tried many, many, many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid watching from the cheap seats, as my mom came through the door, bone-tired from cleaning other people’s houses. But all I can do is quote and say that the explanation in Sidney’s performance in “Lilies of the Field,” “Amen, Amen…. Amen, Amen.”
