For over 30 years, Oprah Winfrey, “the queen of all media,” set the tone for cultural conversations in America, and Winfrey’s acceptance speech for her Cecil B. deMille Award in 2018 was no exception. Anyone in the world who was unaware of what was happening in workplaces across the globe, as women galvanized to tell stories of sexual abuse in a movement known as #MeToo, could no longer feign ignorance after that night.

The acclaimed actress, producer, television star, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Golden Globe nominee for her work in The Color Purple accepted her award on stage at the Beverly Hilton in front of nominees like Meryl Streep (nominated for her role in The Post) and Octavia Spencer (nominated for her role in The Shape of Water), who wore all black to show their solidarity with the movement. Some celebrities brought activists as their dates to the event; All the Money in the World star and Best Actress – Drama nominee Michelle Williams was accompanied by Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement.
Amid all the conversations around sexism, Winfrey’s award also brought attention to the special, intersectional place that Black women hold in Hollywood. “In 1982, Sidney (Poitier) received the Cecil B. deMille Award right here at the Golden Globes, and 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 said.

Winfrey then told the horrific story of Recy Taylor, a young Black woman brutalized by six White men in Alabama in 1944. “They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together, they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted. Recy Taylor died ten 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 dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up.”

The reverberations of this powerful speech can still be felt around the world, and in 2022 films like Till, She Said, and the short film Fannie, the latter about civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.