Friday, March 29, 2024

Viola Davis Celebrates Birthday by Sharing Photo of Plantation Where She Was Born

Viola Davis
(Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

*Viola Davis celebrated her birthday by sharing a photo of her birth home, which is located on a former plantation in South Carolina.

“The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story,” Davis posted on Instagram (see post below). “Today on my 55th year of life… I own it… all of it.”

She also shared a “Cherokee Birth Blessing” that read, “May you live long enough to know why you were born.”

After fans and media outlets reported that she had purchased the property, the actress clarified “contrary to websites… I do not ‘own’ above house, I ‘own’ my STORY!! Too abstract I guess,” she wrote in the comments of the photo.

READ MORE: Vanity Fair Taps First Black Photographer Ever for Viola Davis Cover

As reported by CBS, Davis previously discussed the “horrific” history of the property in a 2016 interview.

“I wasn’t on it long, because I was the fifth child, and so we moved soon after I was born,” she said. “I mean, I went back to visit briefly but still not aware of the history. I think I read one slave narrative of someone who was on that plantation which was horrific. One hundred and sixty acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper. Most of my uncles and cousins, they’re farmers. That’s the choice that they had.”

“My mom says that the day I was born, all of my aunts and uncles were in the house, she said, everyone was drinking and laughing, and having fun,” she continued. 

Davis has also spoken out about her upbringing and the impact living in poverty has on families. 

“[I] realized we were poor,” she said in a 2019 interview with O Magazine. “But I was making my way through it. You either hope or you don’t. And it was hope and dreams that made me put my feet on the floor every morning and just approach every day with a sense of enthusiasm. It was my fight or flight that kicked in.”

Davis said despite the “decimated environment” of her childhood family home, she loves hearing her birth because “it’s not always about things, you know.”

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