The Lives of Oprah Winfery and Malcolm X :: essays papers

The Lives of Oprah Winfery and Malcolm X The lives of Malcolm X and Oprah Winfery have some similarities's but mostly differences. The biggest similarities is that they are both very accomplished black American's. Malcolm X was a hustler, robber and a very messed up child. After going to jail he decided to turn his life around. In a few ways Oprah was the same way. She had struggled with her weight all of her life. Finally she decided to do something about it. When Malcolm was a child his family didn't have very much money. They lived in a run-down house with many brother's and sister's. To make matters worse, they were a black family. When he was about fifteen years old his father was run over by a cart. He was nearly cut in half! The police said it was an accident but, Malcolm and his family knew it wasn't. After his father died things went down hill. His mother was so upset by his death that she couldn't take care of her family. Malcolm started to hang out with the wrong people. He became a hustler, he would rob people for money and valuable things they owned. He also started to get into hard drugs during his teenage years. All of this led to him dropping out of school and his mom was put into a mental hospital. When he was seventeen years old he was arrested and put into jail. This was the start of his "new start". He started reading the dictionary! His speed increased incredibly. By reading the dictionary his vocabulary became much better so he started reading books. After serving 8-10 years in jail he got out and started to speak against racism. He was a very strong speaker, which many people, including some whites, listened to. He would always be talking about how the whites didn't treat them right and to fight against them. On February 21, 1965 Malcolm was speaking at a OAAU rally in Harlem and he was shot and killed. Oprah Winfery, a talk show producer and host, actress, and a very charitable person. She began her career in television when she was nineteen years old. She was the youngest and the first African-American woman to be a news anchor at Nashville's WTVF-TV. Nine years after her T.V. career took off she moved to Chicago to host a morning talk show, "A.M. Chicago" which became the number one rated talk show just a month after Oprah took over. In less than a year the show expanded into a hour long program and was renamed, "The Oprah Winfery