Viola Davis marked her 55th birthday with news of a very meaningful purchase of real estate.
The Oscar-winning actress surprised her by the fact that she is now the proud owner of the house where she was born – and the surrounding land – in St. Louis. Matthews, SC The land sits on the former Singleton Plantation, where, as Davis remarked, her extended family once lived.
The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today at my 55th birthday …. I have it my own …. all of it.
“May you live long enough to know why you were born.”
-Cherokee Birth Blessing- pic.twitter.com/CatJK405BLViola Davis @violadavis 11 August 2020
Part of Davis’ family moved to Rhode Island when she was still a toddler, but the South Carolina home remained important to her.
‘I mean, I went back to try briefly, but still not aware of the history. “I think I read one slave story from someone who was on that plantation which was terrible,” Davis said. “One hundred [and] sixty acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper. Most of my uncles and cousins, they are farmers. That is the choice they had. My grandmother’s house was a one-room loft. I have a picture of it on my phone because I think it is a beautiful image. ”
“I grew up in apartments that were condemned and infested with rats, and I just always wanted to be one,” she said of her life in Rhode Island. ‘I just wanted to be good with something. That is something like the miracle of God, of big dreams and just hoping it fits and that it lands, and it did. Who knew? That I am overwhelmed. “
