Oprah Winfrey Returns to Nashville as Tennessee State's 2023 Commencement Speaker
Oprah Winfrey is going back to her alma mater Tennessee State University, but not as a student. The media mogul will be joining U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson as a speaker at the historically Black college’s 2023 spring commencement taking place later this week.
Winfrey worked as a part-time news reporter at a local black radio station, WVOL, before earning a full-ride scholarship to Tennessee where continued to work through her freshmen year before going on to what is now WTVF-TV becoming their then-youngest and first Black female news anchor. The icon officially graduated from the institution in 1986 with a degree in communication. However, by then, she was already well into her stardom.
Winfrey will be headed back to Nashville for the event taking place Saturday, May 6. The 69-year-old industry veteran last visited Nashville when she touched down for her father, Vernon Winfrey’s, funeral on July 14, 20022. Winfrey Senior was a Metro council member and businessman.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Academy Award-nominated actress delivered a powerful virtual speech to the graduating class of 2020 nationwide, asking students to “show us not how to put the pieces back together again, but how to create and more new and more evolved normal?”
Winfrey also donated more than $20 million in relief funds to help support cities across the country, including Nashville.
