Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball was a three-day celebration held by Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

 honoring twenty-five African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 women in art, entertainment, and civil rights.

The celebration included a luncheon, white-tie ball, and gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 brunch. On May 22, 2006, a year after the celebration, a one-hour program about the weekend aired on ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. It included celebrity interviews and behind-the-scenes moments.

The 25 women included Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

, Shirley Caesar

Shirley Caesar

Shirley Ann Caesar is an American Gospel music singer, songwriter and recording artist whose career has spanned six decades...

, Diahann Carroll, Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett Mora is an African-American sculptor and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged....

, Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist, perhaps best known for co-starring in the film A Raisin in the Sun and the film American Gangster for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Early years:Dee was born Ruby...

, Katherine Dunham

Katherine Dunham

Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...

, Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...

, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

, Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one has to make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride, respect for family, and her...

, Dorothy Height

Dorothy Height

Dorothy Irene Height was an American administrator, educator, and social activist. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.-Early life:Height was born in...

, Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.Mrs...

, Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight

Gladys Maria Knight , known as the "Empress of Soul", is an American singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman, humanitarian, and author...

, Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

, Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...

, Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....

, Leontyne Price

Leontyne Price

Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...

, Della Reese

Della Reese

Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...

, Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

, Melba Moore

Melba Moore

Beatrice Melba Smith , known by her stage name, Melba Moore is an American disco, R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.-Early life:...

, Naomi Sims

Naomi Sims

Naomi Ruth Sims was an African American model, businesswoman and author., who is widely credited as being the first African American supermodel.-Early life:...

, Tina Turner

Tina Turner

Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...

, Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for her Oscar-nominated role in the film Sounder and the television movies The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots....

, Alice Walker

Alice Walker

Alice Malsenior Walker is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender...

, Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....

, and Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson (singer)

Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...

.

Legends luncheon

ABC advertised its television program about this event by describing the luncheon as follows:

The historic weekend began Friday with a private luncheon at [Winfrey]'s Montecito home where the "legends" were greeted by the "young'uns" -- acclaimed stars, including Alicia Keys, Ashanti, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Mary J. Blige, Brandy, Naomi Campbell, Mariah Carey, Natalie Cole, Kimberly Elise, Missy Elliott, Tyra Banks, Iman, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Debbie Allen and Alfre Woodard, among others. Throughout the weekend, the "young'uns" paid homage to the "legends" for their great contributions. World-renowned event planner Colin Cowie attended to every detail, and Grammy Award-winner John Legend performed his hit song, "Ordinary People."

At the end of the luncheon, Winfrey surprised her guests with a parting gift. The "legends" received diamond drop earrings and the "young'uns" received diamond hoop earrings.

White-tie ball

ABC advertised its television program about this event by describing the ball as follows:

On Saturday night, it was an elegant white-tie Legends Ball with notable guests, including Sidney Poitier, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Usher, Barbra Streisand, James Brolin, Lionel Richie, John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Diane Sawyer, Mike Nichols, Maria Shriver, Chris Tucker, Barbara Walters, Quincy Jones, Spike Lee, Senator Barack Obama and Tyler Perry, among many others.

Sunday brunch

ABC advertised its television program about this event by describing the brunch as follows:

The finale of the Legends weekend was Sunday's exuberant gospel brunch with spontaneous performances by Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Chaka Khan.

No-shows

People who might have been there but were not included Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...

, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

, Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...

, Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Noelle Hill is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress.Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of...

, Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt

Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...

, Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...

 and Beyonce. Franklin's absence was probably the most surprising to many followed by Goldberg's. Winfrey's The Color Purple

The Color Purple

The Color Purple is an acclaimed 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker. It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction...

co-star Goldberg was the only African American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award more than once, and the first African American actress to win one since Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind ....

. The absence of Houston was not a surprise to many, because of her drug battle around that time. Hill was both the first woman to receive 10 Grammy nominations in one year and first to win 5 in one night. Williams was the first African American Miss America

Miss America

The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

. It has been said that Winfrey mentioned Franklin and Beyonce's absences were due to scheduling conflicts.

External links

• Oprah.com Article