Spelman College Commencement Address by Oprah Winfrey

Imagine you’re standing at the crossroads of ambition and potential, with Oprah Winfrey’s 2012 Spelman College Commencement Address as your guide. She poured her wisdom into this speech like a sculptor molds clay into a masterpiece, using her personal experiences to inspire the next generation of leaders.

You can’t help but ask, what is it about this speech that resonates so deeply with its audience? How did Oprah’s words influence the path of these young women, and what can we learn from her message?

As you turn these questions over in your mind, you realize there’s much to unpack and understand about this influential address.

Background

While Oprah’s commencement address to the class of 2012 at Spelman College is well-known, her connection with the institution goes beyond this, encompassing a rich tapestry of interactions that includes students from her Leadership Academy gaining admission into Spelman and college students interning at the academy.

You see, Oprah – yes, the philanthropist Oprah Winfrey, didn’t just appear one day to deliver a commencement address. Her relationship with Spelman College has roots, an experience rooted in academic exchanges and shared goals. The Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program, for example, reflects her commitment to education and the empowerment of women.

Students from her Leadership Academy have been accepted into Spelman’s class of 2016, a testament to the quality of the education they’ve received. But it’s also a two-way street. Spelman students have gained invaluable experience interning at the academy, serving as tutors and resident assistants.

Oprah’s special relationship with the college doesn’t end there. She was welcomed back to campus in 1993, where she left an indelible mark on graduates. Through these engagements, Winfrey has forged a bond with Spelman College that transcends her renowned commencement address. It’s an ongoing relationship, a testament to her dedication to education and women’s empowerment.

Key Takeaways

Here are 4 key takeaways from Oprah Winfrey’s Spelman College Commencement Address that showcase the essence of personal empowerment, living with purpose, and the impact of resilience and generosity:

• Life’s Vision: Oprah emphasizes the power of having a clear vision for one’s life.
• Service’s Role: She underscores the importance of service and paying rent for living.
• Television for Good: She highlights using the media, especially television, for uplifting messaging.
• Transient Nature of Fame: Oprah warns about the fleeting nature of fame and the importance of being true to oneself.

Story

As we turn our gaze to the stirring words of Oprah Winfrey at Spelman College, her address emerges as a profound testament to the intertwined legacy of ancestors and the noble path of service. It’s through her narrative that we grasp how a deep-seated commitment to uplifting others and honoring our past can illuminate the journey toward impactful success.

Let us delve into this inspirational story, for it holds the power to transform our understanding of success, urging us to pave a path marked by integrity, service, and an unwavering dedication to the greater good:

The Ancestral Legacy and the Path of Service

Oprah Winfrey’s address at Spelman College began with a profound recognition of the ancestors’ legacy, emphasizing the deep roots and sacrifices that have shaped the present. She illuminated the journey of countless individuals who fought for justice and equality, providing the graduates with a sense of connection to a lineage of resilience and determination. This acknowledgment served not only as a homage to history but also as a foundation for the message of ongoing responsibility and service that Oprah aimed to impart. She encouraged the graduates to see themselves as the bearers of this legacy, tasked with continuing the work of their predecessors in creating a just and equitable society.

In reinforcing the importance of service, Oprah challenged the graduates to leverage their education and opportunities for the greater good. She portrayed service as an essential component of personal and collective progress, arguing that true fulfillment comes from contributing to the betterment of others. This call to action was grounded in the belief that the graduates are uniquely positioned to make meaningful contributions, inspired by the sacrifices and achievements of those who paved their way. Oprah’s message was clear: honoring the ancestral legacy is not just about remembering the past; it’s about actively participating in the ongoing journey towards justice and equality.

Personal Journey of Discovery and Service

Drawing from her own experiences, Oprah shared the transformative moments that defined her path from a small town in Mississippi to becoming a global icon. She recounted the challenges she faced and the moments of clarity that guided her decision to use her platform for good. Her story was a testament to the power of purpose and the impact of using one’s voice to uplift and empower. Oprah’s narrative demonstrated that success is not merely a personal achievement but a vehicle for broader change, emphasizing the responsibility that comes with influence.

Oprah’s reflections on her journey underscored the theme of service as a guiding principle. By choosing to focus her career on positive storytelling and advocacy, she exemplified how individual choices can align with larger goals of social improvement and empowerment. Her personal account served as an inspiration to the graduates, illustrating that while the path to success may be fraught with obstacles, it also offers opportunities to forge a legacy of service and impact. Oprah’s story highlighted the potential to create significant change through dedication, empathy, and a commitment to doing good, urging the graduates to pursue their goals with a heart for service.

The Transformative Power of Doing Right

Oprah emphasized the critical role of integrity in achieving lasting success and respect. She recounted pivotal moments in her career where ethical considerations took precedence over ratings or popularity, including the decision to forego sensational content in favor of protecting individuals’ dignity. This anecdote underscored her commitment to principles over profit, illustrating that ethical leadership involves making tough decisions that reflect our core values. Oprah’s message was a powerful reminder that doing right by others is the essence of true success and leadership.

Further elaborating on the theme of integrity, Oprah shared how her choices were informed by a deeper sense of responsibility towards her audience and society at large. Her decision-making process, characterized by a steadfast adherence to ethical standards, served as a beacon for the graduates, exemplifying how personal and professional decisions can profoundly influence others’ lives. Through her stories, Oprah conveyed that integrity should be the cornerstone of one’s actions, asserting that the most impactful leaders are those who prioritize the greater good above personal achievement. Her insights into the transformative power of doing right offered a blueprint for navigating the complexities of life and career with honor and principle.

Learnings

In Winfrey’s Spelman College Commencement Address, there are 3 key learnings. Let’s delve into each:

Knowing Who You Are

Oprah’s guidance on self-identity emphasizes the importance of introspection and authenticity in personal growth:

• Self-Identity Beyond Titles: Advocates for an exploration of self that goes deeper than societal roles or professional achievements, emphasizing a connection to intrinsic worth and broader existential questions.
• The Pursuit of Authenticity: Stresses the significance of living in alignment with one’s true self and values, positing that genuine fulfillment is the result of such authenticity.
• Vision and Direction: Encourages establishing a personal vision that guides life decisions, focusing on the broader impact one aims to have rather than on accumulating personal accolades.

This approach to understanding oneself underscores the journey toward a life lived with purpose and authenticity.

The Power of Service

Oprah’s perspective on service positions it as a fundamental component of a meaningful and successful life:

• Greatness Through Giving: Positions service as the ultimate measure of success, urging individuals to leverage their abilities and achievements for the betterment of others.
• The Ripple Effect of Kindness: Illustrates how acts of service can initiate widespread positive change, suggesting that kindness has the power to transform communities and societies.
• Building Community and Connection: Emphasizes the role of service in creating stronger bonds within communities, advocating for a commitment to collective well-being and mutual support.

Oprah’s insights into service highlight its critical role in personal fulfillment and societal progress, championing the idea that true greatness is achieved through giving.

Upholding Integrity and Excellence

Oprah’s counsel on integrity and excellence offers a blueprint for navigating life with honor and distinction:

• Excellence as a Standard: Encourages the adoption of excellence as a personal benchmark, asserting that the manner in which tasks are performed reflects one’s character and is remembered by others.
• The Importance of Doing Right: Highlights the value of integrity in achieving long-term success and peace of mind, advocating for ethical conduct even in the absence of external observation.
• Navigating Life with Principle: Provides guidance on making principled decisions amidst life’s complexities, ensuring a path that is not only marked by achievements but also by honor and positive influence.

Oprah’s emphasis on integrity and excellence serves as a moral compass for personal and professional conduct, advocating for a life that is both successful and principled.

Oprah Winfrey’s Spelman College Commencement Speech

Thank you.Thank you. Spelman.

Woo, woo, woo, woo.Look at you. Look at you.

I have to say thank you to Dr. Tatum, to the trustees, and all of the faculty, our distinguished honorary guests, all of the family in the house.

Thank you, friends of the graduates.

It is my exquisite delight to stand before you the 125th graduating class this year 2012. As I stand before you, I see the reflection of myself in your eyes. I feel in the rhythm of your heart beat my own. I feel your desire. I feel you’re yearning to do well and be well in the world. congratulate and celebrate you.

I’m so happy that we had a chance to spend 2 and 1/2 hours together yesterday because my heart was so filled with what I do know for sure about being successful in life and what it takes that I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it all in a commencement speech.

So I’ve tried to condense into just three items–aren’t you glad it’s 3 and not 10–what I feel really matters and that I want to share with you. I did a lot of thinking and praying about youall because you are me.You represent who I am, who I have been, and who I can be in the world.

And so my prayer is that I will be a vessel so that the words will flow through me to you in such a way that when the times get tough you remember and you know.

Yesterday, I heard the Glee Club sing and today. That Glee Club, y’all lead the show. But, yesterday, they sang a song, and I don’t know the name of the song, but the lyrics were “we are here because of our grandmother’s prayers and our grandfather’s dreams. And we came on the breath of our ancestors.”

That feels like the truth to me. That song resonates in my spirit because I know that to be true for myself that I stand where I stand because somebody prayed for me and dreamed for me. And I come trailing the breath of the ancestors. And what I want to share with you is what two of my favorite mentor teachers, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou have said to me that I want to add to the prayers and the dreams.

           Your crown has been paid for. Put it on your head and wear it.

You’re going to walk out of here with a crown today that has been paid for not just by you and your four years but paid for by the blood from the lynchings, the tears and the sweat from the toil in the trials, and the sorrows from the burdens and the weariness paid for by the sit-ins and by the setbacks and paid for by those who, in the words of Sterling Brown, strong men kept coming on stronger, strong men getting stronger, paid for, in the words of Langston Hughes, by those who knew that life wasn’t going to be no crystal stair. It was going to have tax in it and places on the floor ban.

All the time, they would keep climbing on and reaching Landon’s and going in the dark where there wasn’t no light because even though they hadn’t experienced it or tasted freedom, they knew they were planting seeds of the tree that would bear the fruit that is now you. This is their day as well.

And so today you get to fulfill the dream of the great-great-grandmothers who said, I may not get there, but my great-great-granddaughter may one day walk across a stage called Spelman as a liberated woman, as a liberated, educated woman. Today’s your day. Never forget that you did not do this by yourself.

You come here today trailing the breath of the ancestors and the breath of the angels. As I spoke yesterday, I was so pleased to know that you Spelman women are in the spirit. And the three things that I want to leave with you– just these three. I could do 10. I could do a whole life class. But just these three things will carry you if you let them.

First and foremost, knowing who you are. Knowing who you are. Being able to answer this question, who am I, and what do I want?

Many times when I go out of the country, I am baffled by that question to explain, what is your occupation? I’ve stood there for 10 minutes.

Well, am I a talk show host? Well, I’m more than a talk show host. Am I a businesswoman? I’m a businesswoman.I’m more than a businesswoman. Am I an entrepreneur? I’m more than an entrepreneur. So I just leave it blank or self-employed. So I’m not asking for the roles that you play as daughters.I’m not asking that question.What are the roles that you play as a daughter, as a friend, as a sister?

You’re going to be a lawyer.You’re going to teach.You’re going to be a pharmacist.I’m asking the bigger question of, who am I?

Who am I, really? My answer is, I am God’s child.

I am that which is born of all that is. I am, as Pierre de Chardin said, a spiritual having a human experience come trailing the breath of the ancestors yet but trailing the breath of the angels. And understanding that because I am connected to the source of all that is, all that is possible
is possible for me. T

hat’s who I am. And what do I want? I don’t want to just be successful in the world. I don’t want to just make a mark or have a legacy.

The answer to that question for me is, I want to fulfill the highest, truest expression of myself as a human being. I want to fulfill the promise that the creator dreamed when he dreamed the cells that made up me. What do I want?

You must have some kind of vision for your life. Even if you don’t know the plan, you have to have a direction in which you choose to go.

I never was the kind of woman who liked to get in a car and just go for a ride. I had a boyfriend who would say, let’s just go for a ride. I want to know, where are we going? Do we have a destination? Is there a plan, or are we just riding? What I’ve learned is, that’s a great metaphor for life. You want to be in the driver’s seat of your own life because if you’re not, life will drive you. So knowing who you really are in this space and time that we embody, that’s number one.

What do you want? Who are you? Number two, you must find a way to serve.

Martin Luther King said that not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service. Now, we live in a world where everybody wants to be famous and where we admire people for just being famous.

We think being known brings us value. The truth is, all of that will fade in time. In three years, you won’t be able to name the housewives of Atlanta. The real truth is that service and the significance that you bring to your service is that which is lasting.

So to be able to, whatever your occupation or job or talent or gift is–our honorees today getting doctorate degrees, two apparently opposite fields, HIV and AIDS, and the spoken word.But what they have in common is service, using the spoken word in service to community and the world,using your knowledge and information about HIV and AIDS and medicine in service to the world.

And if you look at all the most successful people in the world, whether they know it or not, they have that paradigm of service. Everybody’s talking about Mark Zuckerberg and the IPO.Service.Jay-Z rapping.Service.Through the word to people through song.

For many years, I was really just happy to be on TV, and people would stop and say, oh, you on TV? Yeah, I’m on TV. I like being on TV. It’s a nice job. And it was about the time that I received my honorary doctorate from Spelman around 1993. So I don’t know if that had something to do with it.

I thought of myself as Dr. Winfrey. Then I went back, and I took a long look at what it was I was doing on TV and made a decision that I was no longer going to just be on TV, but I was going to use TV as a platform, as a force for good,and not be used by TV.

And I will tell you-my decision to make that significant change in the way I operated on television using televisionas a service changed my career exponentially.Service through medicine, service through art.

Using whatever it is you produce, your product, as a way of giving back to the world. When you shift the paradigm of whatever it is you choose to do to service and you bring significance to that, success will–I promise you– follow you.

                     Service and significance equals success.

That’s number two.
Number three, it’s so simple but so hard to do.Always do the right thing.Always.

Be excellent. People notice. Think of how you notice.

You go to Taco Bell, somebody gives you extra napkin and some sauce, you notice. You want to go back to that person because even at Taco Bell, excellence shows itself. Be excellent.

Let excellence be your brand. Everybody talks about building a brand. I never even knew what that was.
When people would say, you’re a brand, I would say, no, I’m just Oprah. What I recognize now is that my choice in every way, in every example, in every experience, to do the right thing and the excellent thing is what has created the brand.

Years ago, I did an ad for Revlon, an ad they were doing called Unforgettable Women. And what I know is that when you are excellent, you become unforgettable. People remember you.

You stand out. Regardless of what it is, you become an unforgettable woman, and that is what we all want. We want to be unforgettable and not forgettable. So doing the right thing even when nobody knows you’re doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you. I promise you that. Why?

Because the third law of motion is always at work. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. That is so true in all of our lives. That’s what Newton said. Celie in The Color Purple said it, “Everything you even try to do to me, already done to you.

Everything you even try to do to me, already done to you.” So you don’t have to worry about revenge or getting back at somebody, making sure they pay. You just have to do the right thing.
And the right thing will follow you even when people don’t support it. I remember many times on my show–there are many shows you all never saw. And the reason you didn’t see them is because I got the last vote.

And I remember, 2010, my team, hardest-working team in television, had done this interview with a woman who turns out she was a Sunday school teacher by day and a sex addict at night. And they were like, you won’t believe it, we got her going out, and we got her with the men,
and we get to show her, and she was willing to show us everything.

I sat down with the woman for an interview that was taped. And during the process of the interview, I said, why are you doing this? And she said, oh, I want to help people. I want to tell my story, and I want to help people.I said, do you have children? She says, yes, I have a 10-year-old son.

I knew right then this is never going to see the light of day. So we got off the air, and I said to the lady, we are not going to air that show. And she said, why? My producer said, why? She knew she was being filmed. She knew what she was saying. I said, because her son will never get over it.

Her son will never get over it. And it’s not worth the rating point to me. Not worth the rating point to me to know that there’s a 10-year-old boy who’s destroyed because his mother went on the Oprah Winfrey Show and told all her business. You do the right thing even when other people think it may not be. And oftentimes when you make a decision to do the right thing, immediately, you’re faced with doubt. Was that the right thing? Was that the right decision? I don’t know. Was that the right thing?

You always know it’s the right thing when in the end, there is peace. You are rewarded by peace in knowing that you did the right thing. The most important thing I have come to know in doing the right thing and making the right choices is understanding what we talked about yesterday. All of you leaving here have the potential for enormous success. There’s a price that comes with that. People don’t always like you. And they’re not always happy for you. And if you surround yourself with people who are not accustomed to your success, they become fearful.

They become scared because you are reflecting back something to them that they don’t recognize. Now, they’re not going to say, I’m very fearful because you were reflecting back to me something I don’t recognize. They’re going to say– you know what they’re going to say.

They’re going to say, who she thinks she is? Who she thinks she is? That only happens when you are around people who do not mean and want and aspire to the best for you.

People who want the best for you want you to be your best.So my greatest advice to you is to surround yourself with people who are going to fill your cup until your cup runneth over. So when people say, you’re so full of yourself, you can say yeah.

Yes, I’m full. I’m so full my cup runneth over. And to know that once your cup runneth over, you cannot spend your life with your gallon-size offerings offering them to pint-sized people.

You have got to surround yourself with gallon-sized people who can hang in the same company with you so that you’re not offering your gallons to those little pipes out there who can’t hold it anyway.

“Choice to Change the World,” I love that song. I love hearing you all sing that song. And what I know for sure is that the biggest choices begin and end with you, your internal big questions. Who do I want to be in the world?

My relationship to source energy, to all that is God.

I’m not talking about what you believe in God. I’m talking about your experience of that which is all life, which is divine and universal.

I’m talking about the big deal, being connected and aligned with that. When you are tuned in and charged into that, whenever you feel empty, you go inside yourself, and you connect to the source, and you know that all things are possible.

To know that. And to choose to do the right thing in service and significance. I promise you you will create a vessel of service for yourself first because you have to honor yourself first. You have to give to yourself first. Otherwise, you have nothing to give away. You will create a vessel for yourself, for your family, your community, and the world. And those three things will not only lead you to a blessed life. I stand as a witness.

My life is so blessed. I can’t even take it in sometimes. It will lead you not just to a gifted life and a rewarding life that fills you up but a sweet life.

That’s what you want. You want the sweetness. You want it to be so sweet so that even when the storms come– and they will–you’ll know this too shall pass. This too shall pass. The storm is passing over. And you shall not be moved because you know who you are. When you can do that, grace will follow you, grace and glory. And when they see you coming, it ought to make them proud.

They say it’s the click of your heels.
It’s the bend of your hair.
It’s the palm of your hand.
It’s the need for your care because you are women,
you are Spelman women.
Phenomenally phenomenal class of 2012.
Thank you.

Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Conclusion

You’ve journeyed with Oprah through her impactful Spelman College address. You’ve seen her connection, absorbed the key themes, and felt the palpable impact on the graduates.

Her inspirational anecdotes touched you, leaving an indelible mark.

Now, you’re left with the powerful essence of her words, a gentle push towards self-discovery, dream fulfillment and service to others.

Remember, it’s not just an address, it’s a blueprint for transformation.

 

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