Oprah surprises Morehouse students with weekend visit
A group of seniors at Morehouse College were enjoying their pre-graduation dinner Friday night when they were greeted by the woman who helped make their college journey possible.
To the rest of the world, she is known as Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire media mogul. But for this select group of Morehouse students, she is “Auntie O,” the donor that has been sponsoring students at the historically Black college in Atlanta for nearly four decades.
Following a surprise announcement at the dinner, the group turned to see the legend herself enter the room, dressed in a white pinstripe suit with a big smile on her face.
“I thought it was a joke at first,” graduating senior Marcellis McQueen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You just see her coming from the back and I was in utter shock. I jumped up and I was like, there’s no way this is happening.”
Since 1989, the iconic television host has helped put hundreds of Morehouse students through school via the Oprah Winfrey Endowed Scholars Program. In a video posted to her social media account Sunday evening, Winfrey shocked the roughly dozen students who comprise the 2026 cohort, the most recent crop of what she called, “the best investment I or anyone could make.”
Leaning on a banister outside the room before entering, Winfrey looked to the camera and said the students were having their dinner, unaware “that I’m here to check on those grades.”
The scholars spoke at the podium one by one, telling the audience what the program has meant for their lives, with some announcing their post-graduation plans to loud applause. Winfrey watched from the front of the room.
“It was an out-of-body experience,” said Daymond Johnson, a sociology major. “I was just trying to make sure I didn’t stutter or mess up my speech.”
McQueen shared a table with Winfrey and peeked at her as his fellow scholars took the podium. “She was just amazed,” said McQueen. “I was getting choked up too, just watching my brothers get up there and say, ‘Hey, y’all, this is what’s next for me. This is what I’ve been able to accomplish.’”
After they were done, it was Winfrey’s turn.
“This has been a great, great joy for me. Just a joy. Such a reward,” Winfrey told the crowd, fighting back tears as she spoke. “I feel so rewarded by every single young man who has spoken here today.”
A graduate of Tennessee State University, she spoke of the profound impact attending an HBCU had on her, McQueen recalled.
In another video, Winfrey explained after she made her first $200,000, she divided her money into two categories: a “risk bucket” consisting of funds she was willing to lose, and a “savings bucket” of what she was not.
“You all are in the savings bucket,” she told the students. “Because it was a safe bet that supporting you in the dream of your life, and the dream your ancestors had for your life, that that was about the safest, safest investment anyone could make.”
Her investment has paid for the schooling of nearly 800 Morehouse graduates, with the $25,000 annual scholarship going toward tuition, fees, room and board.
On Friday, she called it the proudest investment she’s ever made.
“You all have already made the return on the investment for me. And I thank you for that, because you honor not only my name, Oprah Winfrey and the scholarship program, but you honor everybody who ever prayed you up,” an emotional Winfrey told the room.
Winfrey originally donated $12 million to the program in 1989. Thirty years later she gave the school $13 million to keep the program going.
To be eligible for the scholarship, students must demonstrate significant financial need, maintain a 3.0 grade-point average and complete community service requirements.
Such programs are particularly meaningful at Morehouse and other HBCUs, where students typically come from families with lower household incomes and are highly dependent on loans to afford college. Federal data shows in the 2023-2024 academic year, 45% of Morehouse students received a Pell grant — a federal award reserved for students with significant financial need — and that its graduates have a median student loan debt of $25,000.
After one year at a junior college in California, Johnson transferred to Morehouse for his sophomore year. A Detroit native and first-generation college student, he and his family didn’t qualify for loans large enough to cover the full cost of attendance. So while Morehouse gave him a scholarship and gap funding to pay for his first year at the school, he wasn’t sure how he’d afford to stay enrolled.
“Without the Oprah Winfrey Scholarship program, I don’t know how I would’ve came back (to Morehouse),” Johnson said.
After graduating in May, Johnson will be doing an internship with the National Basketball Association before beginning a full-time job with Bank of America as a corporate strategist.
During their four years at Morehouse, students are “brought up to be everything that we wanted to be,” said McQueen. “We wear it like a badge of honor, and it feels even better when someone like Oprah Winfrey, a pioneer, tells you that, hey, you guys are worth every penny.”
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