Oprah's Message to 'Brutally Powerful Men': 'Time Is Up'

Winfrey is first black woman to win Cecil B. DeMille Award
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 7, 2018 10:36 PM CST
Oprah's Message to 'Brutally Powerful Men': 'Time Is Up'
Oprah Winfrey poses in the press room with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes show at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday in Beverly Hills, Calif.   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Host Seth Meyers joked about Oprah Winfrey running for president in his opening monologue at the Golden Globes—and after giving what the Independent calls "one of the most iconic speeches of all time" at the awards show, Oprah seems to have the speech-making part of the job nailed. Winfrey was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, the first black woman to be bestowed with the honor, and she used her acceptance speech to touch on racism, the Me Too movement, and the current political climate. "It's not lost on me that at this moment, there are little girls watching as I become the first black woman to receive this award," she said, per EW.com, noting how she was a young girl when she saw Sidney Poitier take home an Oscar for 1963's Lilies of the Field—the first black man to win an Academy Award, and "the most elegant man I ever remembered," Oprah noted.

Without mentioning anyone in particular, Oprah also addressed "tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies" and touched on how she values the free press "more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times." She then spoke about the women who've "endured years of abuse and assault," including Recy Taylor, a young mother who was raped by six white men while coming home from church in 1944. Taylor died at the end of December at the age of 97, and Oprah noted "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 dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up." Director Ava DuVernay on Oprah's words: "Let me tell you this room is still vibrating like electricity from that speech," DuVernay tweeted. Winfrey's full speech at the Independent. (More Golden Globes stories.)

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