Entertainment and talk show legend and philantropist Oprah Winfrey got rousing applause and brought Hollywood to their feet on Sunday night at the 75th Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles with her moving speech accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award, saying she knows that somewhere little girls are watching as she becomes the first black woman to get this award.
Oprah Winfrey also said "we all know the press is under siege these days".
"But we also know that it is the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims and secrets and lies".
"I want to say that I value the press more than ever before," said Oprah Winfrey.
"What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I'm especially proud and inspired by all the women have have felt strong enough, and empowered enough, to speak up and share their personal stories."
"Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell. And this year we became the story.But it's not just a story affecting the entertainment industry, it's one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or work place".
"I want to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue".
"They're the women whose names we'll never know. They are domestic workers. And farm workers. They are working on factories and they work in restaurants and academia, and engineering, and medicine and science and they're part of the world of tech, and politics and business, athletes in the Olympics and soldiers in the military".
"And there's someone else: Recy Taylor. A name I know and I think you should know too."
"In 1944 Recy Taylor was just walking home from a church service she attended in Alabama when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and blindfolded by the side of the road; coming home from church".
"They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone. But her story was reported to the NAACP where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together they sought justice".
"But justice wasn't an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never prosecuted. Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday."
"She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up," said Oprah Winfrey.
"And I just hope that that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth - like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years - goes marching on."
"It was somewhere in Rosa Parks' heart almost 11 later when she made the decision to stay seated on that bus, and it's hear with every women who chooses to say #MeToo, and every man who chooses to listen."
"In my career what I've always tried my best to do - whether on television or through film - is to say something of how men and women really behave, to say how we experience shame, how we love and rage and how we fail and how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome."
And I've interviewed and portrayed people who had withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you. But the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning - even during our darkest night."
"So I want all girls here now, to know that a new day is on the horizon, and when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody else has to say #MeToo again," said Oprah Winfrey.
