Award Shows January 07, 2018
Oprah's Powerful #MeToo Speech at Golden Globes: 'A New Day Is on the Horizon'
It was a big night for women at the Golden Globes, including Oprah Winfrey, who accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Oprah delivered a powerful speech, perfectly timed to the #MeToo and #TIMESUP movements, in which she declared, “A new day is on the horizon.”
First, the mogul recalled the milestone moment Sidney Poitier won Best Actor at the Oscars in 1964. "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, and I'd never seen a black man being celebrated like that.”
She continued, “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... Sidney's performance in 'Lilies of the Field': 'Amen, amen. Amen, amen.'"
Oprah insisted, "It is not lost on me that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as I become the first black woman to be given this same award."
She also told the story of Recy Taylor, a young black mother who was kidnapped and raped in 1944 by three white men.
Oprah told the crowd, "Justice wasn't an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted. Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up!"
Golden Globes 2018 Live Blog
View StoryShe did, however, offer hope, saying, "I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon. And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women... and some pretty phenomenal men fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders that take us to the time when nobody has to say 'me too' again."
The Cecil B. DeMille Award is a Golden Globe honor bestowed on a recipient for "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment."
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