That's What Friends Are for: On the Women Who Inspired Me

I've been blessed to work in the media business for twenty-five years, having started out in 1992 as a news reporter trainee and a local morning show producer in Atlanta. My move to New York City in 1995 would give me access to a larger playing field, first handling duties for Geraldo Rivera, whose primetime show Rivera Live I produced.

But perhaps I'm best known as having been a freelance field producer for The Oprah Winfrey Show for over thirteen years. Some would call that a career highlight given my assignments dispatched me front and center to interview the world's notables. One day the focus of my attention could be President Bill Clinton at the White House's Roosevelt Room on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in 2001. On another day, in May of 2005, it was Senator Barack Obama as he and his wife Michelle attended Oprah's historic Legends Ball, where she honored a host of African-American legends in front of an esteemed room of entertainers, politicians, and tastemakers. "It's never hard for me to extol the wonders and beauty of black women," said the future president of the United States. I've felt the very same way about black women in arts and entertainment from practically the womb.

Though a Southern boy since I was nine years old, born to two Savannah, Georgia natives, my Air Force-enlisted dad made a global family out of me and my older siblings Janice and Herman. We lived in places like Berlin and Tokyo for years before calling Valdosta, Georgia home. I came into my memories around this time, and I knew I was a bit different than other boys, though I didn't think to call the feeling being gay as young as I was. But what I do know is that I loved to spend time with my mom and my sister as they watched the "stories," more popularly known as soap operas.