Tina Knowles: "Matriarch" | Oprah's Book Club
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Who is Tina Knowles and what is her memoir 'Matriarch' about?
The Beehive is buzzing in here. Y'all doing it. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this podcast. Welcome to Oprah's Book Club presented by Starbucks. We're here in a Starbucks cafe in my old Chicago neighborhood. I spent so many mornings and nights, 25 years walking my dogs all around this neighborhood. It feels so good to be back with you all. And I have to say, I love this idea of meeting a friend at your neighborhood Starbucks cafe to connect over a book. and a delicious cup of coffee or tea. I think it's a great way to spend a morning or afternoon. And the pairing for my April's Book Club is the Sencera blend. It's a nice light coffee, a Starbucks blonde roast with citrus and toasted almonds. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
Toasted almonds in your coffee. Don't you love that? And now I'm just so happy to be here to tell you what my 113th book club pick is. It's an intimate and revealing look into an extraordinary American life and family. It is a memoir. And it is a page turner about legacy. It's about love. It's about loss. It's about perseverance and the wisdom that is passed down through generations, especially from mother to daughter. It's called Matriarch. And we have the matriarch, Miss Tina Nose. First of all, I was saying this to your editor, that this is a beautiful book. Talking about you can't judge a book by cover.
I think you can. This is pretty good. Well, I love this artist. He's an African artist in Lagos. And I've got several paintings from him. And he always puts cherry blossoms behind it. And his paintings remind me of my mom. You know, I grew up in this little town. raggedy house, but my mom had the most beautiful rose bushes and she just had this green thumb and there were flowers everywhere. We always had flower wallpaper and, you know, flowers were so representative of her and her spirit. Yeah.
Well, you know, you are obviously one of the most recognizable and beloved mothers. So it is no surprise to me that this book hit number one on Amazon charts the moment it was announced. Matriarch is the perfect title for your story. Why were you ready to share it now?
Well... You know, I thought I'd never do a memoir because, as you know, my family is super private, more so than me. But I always felt like I had to protect everybody and not talk about things. And there have been so many narratives about me and my family, so many misconceptions, so many lies, that I decided one day, you know, do I want people to tell my story after I'm gone and create their own narrative? Or should I tell it? So that was very, very important to me that I got the story out myself.
Well, one of the things that I thought you did that was so admirable in Matriarch is that you tell your story, and we are fully engaged in your story, and all the people that are in your life, obviously, your ex-husband, and... ex-husbands, and your two very famous daughters, but you also don't expose their lives in a way that it feels invasive to them. You come away with a great sense of how, first of all, you all got to be who you are. And in Matriarch, you tell us about the mothers that came before you, and I want to list them. You are the daughter of Agnes. Mm-hmm. and the granddaughter of Odelia, the great-granddaughter of Celestine, which was your original name, who had 10 children by her slave owner.
and the great-great-granddaughter of Rosalie, who was also an enslaved woman. And one of the most sacred things that Maya Angelou had shared in one of her poems called Grandmothers, she says, I come as one, but I stand as 10,000. And in this book, Matriarch, we get to see how you came as yourself, as this fearless woman, but of all the people, particularly the matriarchs behind you, that allowed you to stand. How were you able to discover so much about the matriarchs in your family?
What inspired Tina Knowles to write her memoir now?
Well, just research. I was amazed by their resilience and their... ability to still take care of their kids and make sure that they weren't sold or separated from them.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Tina Knowles and what is her memoir 'Matriarch' about?
0:11–5:00
2
What inspired Tina Knowles to write her memoir now?
5:00–7:41
3
What were Tina Knowles' early life experiences and family background?
7:41–13:04
4
How did Tina's early school experiences shape her identity and resilience?
13:04–16:03
5
What gave Tina Knowles her fearlessness and how did she develop her voice?
16:03–19:30
6
How does Tina Knowles teach pride and liberation in Black identity?
19:30–23:06
7
What was it like raising Beyoncé and Solange and how did Tina support their differences?
23:06–27:00
8
Why did Tina Knowles choose to put her daughters in therapy and what was the impact?
27:00–51:58
Speakers
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