Introduction

Abstract

To hear the name, “Oprah Winfrey” brings to mind a series of identifiers—a woman, an African American, an actress, a producer, and a billionaire. The latter two have empowered her to tremendously effect how people, regardless of race, view African Americans—their lives, culture, experiences, conflicts, art, relationships, and so on. Expanding the list of identifiers, in her 2005 review of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Virginia Heffernan states, “It is fitting, then, that Oprah Winfrey—the nation’s one-woman African-American studies department, as well as its most visible proponent of American literature—would choose to make the first movie of Their Eyes Were Watching God.”¹ Certainly Winfrey’s financial resources far outweigh those of any African American Studies Department, but her access to a wide audience who might learn something of Black life that they may not have an opportunity to engage in an academic setting gives her a unique footing, unparalleled by most university professors. It is precisely her influence that inspires this collection, Presenting Oprah Winfrey, Her Films, and African American Literature.