Oscar award-winning actress Viola Davis commemorated her 55th birthday on Instagram by sharing a photo of the house, a former plantation, where she was born.
The farmhouse is located in Saint Matthews, S.C. Davis was born there on Aug. 11, 1965, and once belonged to her grandmother.
“The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965,” Davis wrote in a post and a photo of the tattered home. “It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life….I own it….all of it.”
She then shared a Native American Cherokee birth blessing that reads, “May you live long enough to know why you were born.”
Following the post, some assumed that Davis had purchased the home. She hopped back online to clarify her statement.
“Uhh… contrary to websites…. I do not ‘own’ above house, I ‘own’ my STORY!! Too abstract I guess,” she wrote.
In 2016, Davis spoke candidly about her family history. Her grandfather was a sharecropper.
“My grandmother’s house was a one room shack. I have a picture of it on my phone because I think it’s a beautiful picture,” she said at the time during an episode of The Jess Cagle Interview.
“I wasn’t on it long, because I was the fifth child, and so we moved soon after I was born,” she continued. “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.”
