Oprah Winfrey Acceptance Speech - 1998

Oprah Winfrey Accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.

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We are all beacosn of light for each other.

From the beginning, being a colored, then negro

then black, then African-American child.

Growing up in Mississippi my prayer was, for as

long as I could remember, "God use me."

"Use me. Use this life. I don't know what the future holds

for me. But I know that there is a vision for my life

that is greater than my imagination can hold, use me, use me, what would you have me to do?"

And that dream, that desire

that prayer, brought me somehow to television.

And to be able to use this tremendous vehicle of television

to go into people's homes, and somehow

be able to touch their lives, and be the beacon that Barbara was for me.

To be a light of hope and understanding,

to share some sense of illumination

that maybe sometimes reflects peoples lives,

and sometimes opens them up to themselves

is the greatest blessing God could have given me.

And I want to continue to use television as we become more polarized in this medium

I choose to use it in whatever way I can, we can, to make people

lead better lives.

To lead them to the highest vision possible for themselves

That is the goal. I thank you for this award

because it encourages me to run on and see what

the end will be. Thank you!