Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [29]
“In retrospect, it was a bold selection, putting the slave experience in the faces of whites, but Oprah, who was not an activist in any way, captured the humanity of the character and presented her without anger or bitterness,” said Ms. Haynes.
Dressed in a long cotton skirt and an old shawl, and with a white knit hairnet covering her long black hair, Oprah delivered her oration to her classmates before the state tournament.
“I will never forget the force of energy when she walked to the front of the room, already in character, her eyes sweeping across the room, making eye contact with as many of her fellow students as possible,” recalled classmate Sylvia Watts Blann more than thirty-five years later. “Without much ado, she launched into a powerful performance, relating the first-person story of a female slave as she was examined, [offered but not sold] on the block, eventually tied to a post and whipped for having too much spirit and had salt rubbed into her wounds.
“I wasn’t the only one that morning with tears in my eyes as the class was transported back one hundred and ten years to a horrifying time when white people presumed to own black people in this very nation—in this very state. I have always been struck with the way she, rather than lashing out in personal anger, chose to mirror back to us the legacy of this crime against humanity. Over the years, as Oprah went about building her career in public life, I thought back many times on the heart-wrenching reality conveyed by her performance. We knew she was special even back then.”
While the Civil Rights Act had mandated integration in public schools and public facilities, the social line separating blacks and whites remained firmly in place in Nashville in 1970. “We were all friends during the day, but you didn’t do anything with them [the black kids] after school,” said Larry Carpenter. “Oprah tried to socialize with whites and she was chastised for it. The black kids felt she dealt with the other race too much.”
“That’s when I was first called an Oreo [black on the outside, white on the inside],” Oprah recalled. “I crossed the lines and sat with the whites in cafeteria.… In high school I was the teacher’s pet, which created other problems. I never spoke in dialect—I’m not sure why, perhaps I was ashamed—and I was attacked for ‘talking proper like white folks,’ for selling out.”
As a teenager, Oprah was embarrassed by the images of Africans she saw on television and in films. “I was ashamed if anybody asked, ‘You from Africa?’ in the school. I didn’t want anybody to talk about it. And if it was ever discussed in any classroom I was in, it was always about the Pygmies and the … primitive and barbarian behavior of Africans.… I remember, like, wanting to get over that period really quickly. The bare-breasted National Geographic pictures? I was embarrassed by all of it.”
Being in the minority, the black students at East strengthened their numbers by voting in a bloc, especially for student body offices and superlatives, the prized designations of Most Popular, Most Handsome, Most Talented, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Bashful, etc. They banded together, nominated one person, and voted only for that person, while the white students, with several nominees, inevitably split their vote, which usually enabled the black candidate to win. “That’s why my getting elected student body president was considered such an upset,” recalled Gary Holt. “I was one of two whites running against one black, and I couldn’t have won without black support.”
At the same time, Oprah was the only black student running for vice president. Her campaign picture carried the slogan “Put a Little Color in Your Life. Vote for the Grand Ole Oprah.” She held her birthday party in the school gymnasium, and promised better food in the cafeteria and a live band (half-black, half-white) at the prom instead of records. She, too, was elected because she pulled black as well as white votes. She also won one of the coveted superlatives because, according