Oprah and Danny sizzle in their fist love scenes in the powerful film 'Beloved.'

Ebony, Nov, 1998 by Laura B. Randolph

It has also changed Oprah forever. "The experience of doing Beloved has been transforming," she explains. "It has put me in the knowing place of where I come from. I come out of it more determined than ever to soar because that is my foundation. That legacy is our foundation."

It is a foundation she wants every Black person in America to ground himself/herself in, to feel in the marrow of our bones. "I think that if you ever go to the knowing place, not just its periphery, you are so strong you feel impenetrable," she says. "I feel nobody can say or do anything to hurt me because that is where I come from, that is where we come from. I feel like we have missed the point in what we acknowledge about our history. It's not about what we did, it's about who we were. It's about the courage and the kind of divine mind it takes to live in a world where nothing in the world -- not a book, not a newspaper, not a person, not a symbol -- says your life means anything or has any value. But for you to look inside yourself and say, `I am better than this' and have the strength and the power to say, `I believe I'll run on, what that takes.' And that is where we come from. That is what we really have. And when you know that, you believe as I do that there is no top. Think of all the Sethes in the world whose names aren't in the history books who were able to withstand what they did in a world where they had zero, nothing. If they were able to stand with that, what can we do?"