Oprah Winfrey has long promoted black issues by being involved as a producer or actor in the adaptation of works by African American writers for film. These include "The Color Purple", "Native Son", "The Women of Brewster Place", "Beloved", "The Wedding", "Their Eyes Were Watching God", and "Precious". This volume evaluates Winfrey's involvement in the visual interpretation of African American literary texts. The contributors use film, music, black masculinity, black feminist, and cultural studies to examine the role she has played as actress, and in some cases, producer, of films that interpret works published by African American writers between 1937 and 1996.