Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi to Vernita Lee, her mother and Vernon Winfrey, her father. Oprah began her inspiring life in a small farming community in her Mississippi town. Growing up she experienced something no young girl, or boy for that matter should have to face. Oprah was sexually abused by various male relatives and some of her mother’s friends when she lived with her mother in a Milwaukee ghetto. This was a traumatic time in her life and she wanted to leave the abuse and move to Tennessee to live with her father, Vernon. Vernon was a businessman and also worked as a barber in Tennessee. Her parents never married and soon after Oprah was born they separated and left her with her grandmother on the small farm in Mississippi. As a child Oprah loved talking and making her presence known, she would make speeches for the animals on the farm. She learned to read at the age of two and a half years old under her grandmother’s guidance and addressed her church congregation at the age of two. Her message on Jesus and Easter. From a young age it was clear what her talent would be, public…show more content… and throughout the world and women and girls from a young age, I see Oprah Winfrey as a Minority Woman Leader because of what she went through, no child should be sexually abused, her innocence and childhood was taken from her the moment she was taken advantage of as a young girl. Being one of the first women to make it big in national news companies she overcame the barrier of sexism and not only was she one of the first women to make a name for herself but she was also the first African American woman to make a name for herself