The indomitable Oprah Winfrey, who was recently honored with an entire exhibit of her life and work at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will never forget those who made it possible for her to become the trailblazing pioneer she remains.
According to a segment shared widely by CNN, during the opening of the exhibit last week, Winfrey said that she keeps a 6-foot painting of an enslaved woman on the auction block, holding her daughter’s hand placed, prominently in her home so that amid all of that opulence (because you know Oprah’s Santa Barbara, Calif., manse is nothing if not fabulous), she remains grounded.
“I cannot come in the door ... or I cannot leave, without passing that painting,” said Winfrey of the work that she says she’s owned for 30 years, titled, To the Highest Bidder, by Harry Roseland. “I am reminded of where I come from every day of my life.”
The media mogul said that she was very deliberate in the painting’s placement at the center of her home because it is, in fact, the center of her life.
“I am reminded every day of my life. And I am reminded because I never want to forget it,” said the 64-year-old billionaire.
Winfrey also said that in her library, she has a list of enslaved African Americans listed in ledgers along with livestock and property and says that she passes this list every day and sometimes speaks those people’s names and ages, including “Jonas, 11 years old, $500; Sarah, 41 years old, $900; Elizabeth, 57 years old, $800.”
“And I force myself to observe the absurdity and the obscenity of prices being affixed to each one should they be placed up for sale,” Winfrey said.
Winfrey said that she sometimes pauses before these names with a prayer, “particularly if I have to make a big decision about something” in her life.
“It reminds me, speaking those names, not only how far I’ve come from, but how far I have to go, because of them. And it reminds me that I am never alone,” she said.