Earlier this month, Daphne Brown published her new book, “Oprah Winfrey: From Jim Crow to Billionaire,” primarily because she wanted to increase reading proficiency for African American youth. The book chronicles the life of one of America’s most famous and inspiring people, Oprah Winfrey, and her rise to superstardom.
“Reading is the key to academic success across the board, and I hope that young people will pick up the book and read it because it’s interesting and inspiring,” Brown tells Madison365. “It’s a basic youth scholar book created to increase Black youth and scholars’ proficiency in reading. It’s youth-oriented, so probably [made for students] from fourth grade to 8th grade. But even adults will enjoy reading it, too.
“It’s a quick read, and what it does is just give a basic biography of Oprah Winfrey’s story, and it’s very positive, nothing negative,” Brown continues. “It talks about how she was born under Jim Crow and she moved to Milwaukee to live with her mom. The book speaks about her shows and her girls’ school, and her own network. So it’s just a basic biography, but my whole point in doing this is that I want to help increase the joy of reading and its academic, personal and future professional benefits to African American youth.“
“Oprah Winfrey: From Jim Crow to Billionaire,” according to its summary at Amazon.com, tells the story of “the little girl that started out under unfair Jim Crow laws; rose up and became a self-made billionaire for all the world to see.” Brown chronicles Oprah’s beginning, born in Kosciusko, Mississippi to a teenage mother, to her girls’ school, her famous TV show, and her rise to fame while becoming the first Black woman billionaire in the world.
Brown is a former Madisonian and former Mt. Zion Church parishioner now living in Minneapolis, who is a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategist, educator, professional speaker and author.
“I think it’s important as an African American person to tell our own narratives and perspectives and viewpoints on our history,” she says. “I know that young people like to read things that are interesting and inspiring. But representation is also so important.”
Brown says that she remembers when she was a child and the anticipation and excitement she had waiting for the new Essence Magazine to come out at her local library.
“I saw all those women who looked like me, and they were so inspiring. And I thought, ‘Oh, I could be anything I wanted to be.’ And I had never, at that point, seen an African American woman on the cover of a magazine,” she remembers. “So representation increases the interest in reading and the joy of reading. And I think that’s so important.”
Brown emphasizes that her book is for everyone, but she specifically hopes that young African American students will read it.
“I hope young people see it and say, ‘Let me pick it up and read it. Let me see what it is. Oprah Winfrey didn’t come from a whole lot and she ended up doing so many amazing things and became this superstar … and she looks like me,'” Brown says. “For young people, you don’t have to want to be a billionaire, but what I want you to do is be the best of what you’re purposed to be.”
Brown says she still looks back fondly on the time she spent in Madison before moving to Minnesota and her experiences with her daughter, who graduated from Sun Prairie High School. “My daughter got a great education there in the Madison area and she went on to graduate from DePaul University and has a great job in San Diego,” she says.
“I really loved my time in the Madison area. I met so many wonderful people and lifelong friends and I remain so close with people there. Me and Ms. Milele [Chikasa Anana, the late Umoja Publisher] … we were best friends,” Brown adds.
It was during her time in Madison that she authored her first book, Spiritual Healing for a Woman’s Soul. Brown is already looking ahead to her next book, which will be titled “Fannie Lou Hamer: A Civil Rights Icon from Sunflower County, Mississippi.”
Brown says that she knows there will be many Madisonians interested in her new book chronicling the life of one of America’s most famous and inspiring people, Oprah Winfrey, who just happens to be related to her.
“She is indeed related to me. We are second cousins. I don’t mention that hardly ever, because I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, she wrote that to benefit from Oprah.’ My next book will be about Fannie Lou Hamer, but I thought, why not start with Oprah?” Brown says. “It really enriches me as an educator, having children pick up the book and say, ‘Whoa, you know what? I can do this, too. I’ve got a lot of problems. A lot of things are going on in my life, but I could be somebody someday… just like Oprah.’ And that’s so important. One of the most important things about being a writer is to inspire young people.”
“Oprah Winfrey: From Jim Crow to Billionaire” is available for purchase here.
