Back to the Future

‘O’ Magazine Changed the Publishing Industry

From its covers to introductions of household names, the publication proved Oprah to be a maverick

This story is a part of our Back to the Future series on how key moments in the year 2000 influenced similar events in 2020.

When I was in college, I read an article in O, The Oprah Magazine that I’ve held onto like a button. I was an undergraduate student at the University of Kentucky, and my myopic mind was not yet filled with the possibilities of life outside the state. I wanted a better life than the one I was handed as a girl, and college was my way out, but I had no idea where to start. Thankfully, I had a poetry professor named Nikky Finney, who gave a talk to the Black journalism student organization. She picked up a piece of chalk, and our eyes followed her fingers as she wrote on the blackboard: Ida B. Wells.

One day, Finney told me to meet her in the English Department. When I arrived at her office, she handed me a 9x12-inch envelope sealed with a gold clasp, my name written in caps on the front. It felt like a special assignment. I rushed back to my dorm to open it. Inside was an article torn from the pages of O magazine. I removed the pages from the envelope and saw a photo of Dr…