A sold-out Monday night fundraiser showcasing poet Maya Angelou and talk show host Oprah Winfrey was designed to honor Dayton’s legacy of innovation and creativity and provide capital funding for the city’s historic Wright-Dunbar Business Village.
The diverse audience rose to its feet cheering and shouting when each of the women took the stage. Each spoke individually without notes, then joined one another for informal dialogue.
“We don’t do this very often,” Winfrey told the audience when she came onto the stage wearing a tailored pink fitted jacket and pleated skirt. “This is only the second time in our lives, so you are very special.”
Winfrey, who begins her 20th television season today, said she and mentor Maya Angelou share the spirit of aviator Bessie Coleman “who believed in the power of possibility.”
Coleman, it was offcially announced, will be inducted into the 45th annual Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2006. She was the frst person of color — male or female — to be licensed as an American pilot.
Children were a focus of the evening, which began with a pre-sentation by Dayton’s youngest dancers. Students from Dayton schools were scattered through-out the theater and given front row seats as well. Winfrey, 51, and Angelou, 77, frequently ad-dressed the youngsters direct-ly, encouraging them to become readers and to dream.
“I am a living testimony to what God can do in a colored girl’s life,” Winfrey said, standing on the edge of the stage and sharing anecdotes from her life, often acting out the various characters — her kindergarten teacher, her grandmother. “There are no limitations ... the sky isn’t even a limitation. I can’t even imagine, looking at you young people, your future is so bright, it just burns my eyes.”
“When is the last time anyone told you how important you are?” Angelou queried, staring into the eyes of the children in the front row. “You are the best we have.”
In addition to stressing the importance of reading, Angelou said lessons can come from people of all colors, ages, sizes and countries.
She insisted courage, which grows from love, is the most important of all virtues.
“Without courage you cannot practice any other virtue consistently,” she said. “I’m going to have enough courage to speak to someone who doesn’t look like me. I’m black but I’m going to speak to somebody white.” And vice versa.
It was Angelou’s visit in November on behalf of Read and Rise that led her to return to Dayton, bringing along her close friend Winfrey. Read and Rise is nationwide literacy initiative developed in partnership between the National Urban League and Scholastic Books.“
When I spoke to Ms. Winfrey (about coming), she said, ‘Whaaa? Hmm.’ Then — because she knows me — ‘OK.’ ”
In the last segment of the evening, the two friends sat on tall high-backed chairs for an informal chat. Though neither woman’s feet touched the foor, their message was grounded in faith and God.
“We thought we would let you eavesdrop on one of our conversations,” explained Winfrey, who said Angelou is the frst person she calls when she is in distress.
Winfrey said she has learned from her mentor how to be still and listen. Her respectful demeanor made that obvious.
The two talked about classic women’s issues, such as the “disease to please.”
After the program, volunteers collected donations for the American Red Cross relief efforts.
Ironically, the dance performance in the first half of the show was chosen before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. Children of the Passage, performed by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, was based on the music and lifestyle of New Orleans.
Jen Stoecker, director of communications and development for Wright-Dunbar Inc., said the organization hopes to clear $100,000 from the event.
Audience members, estimated at 2,300, paid between $50 and $300 for seats.
“Anywhere Oprah and Maya are I want to be,” said Ernestine Davison, who spent much of her adult life living in West Dayton.” As African-Americans, we go to see and hear and learn and be proud.”
Davison said the area, which will beneft from Monday night’s fundraiser, “was a dive, a dump.“
Now, it’s exciting just to see where they are and now how much it can improve.”
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