Buffalo Church, on Oprah Winfrey Road in the Buffalo community northeast of Kosciusko, is the country church where Oprah Winfrey made what accounts of her life record as her first public performance, a recitation of the Easter story. She was born in Kosciusko on January 29, 1954, to a teenage mother, and was named for Orpah in the Book of Ruth, a name that was mispronounced into Oprah. Her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee, raised her on a small farm in the community until she was six and took her to church. The county road that passes her family's burial ground, the site of her birth and the church was named for her, and it runs north from Mississippi Highway 12.
She was so poor as a child that she often wore dresses made from potato sacks. At six she was sent to Milwaukee to live with her mother, and later went to Nashville to live with Vernon Winfrey, the man she calls her father. She was co-anchoring the local television news in Nashville at nineteen, moved to Baltimore in 1976 to co-anchor the evening news, began co-hosting the talk show People Are Talking there in 1978, and in 1986 launched The Oprah Winfrey Show, which became the most successful talk show in American television.
Forbes counted her the first Black woman billionaire in 2003, and in 2013 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area lists the church and the road among the sites of Attala County.
Getting there
33.0831, -89.5372
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
