Viola Davis opens up about growing up poor: ‘There's a lot of shame involved with poverty’
Article By Tera Davidson // Entertainment // EEW Magazine Online
There are powerful and highly successful women of faith in various fields of entertainment in America. One who stands out in a spectacular way is the incomparable Oscar, Emmy and Tony award-winning actress Viola Davis.
To look at her today, one might assume success was delivered to her on a silver platter, but no assumption could be more wrong. The 55-year-old star of the upcoming Netflix drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, starring opposite the late Chadwick Boseman, is revealing just how rough she had it along the rocky, unpaved road to prosperity in her chosen profession.
Davis’s story is a perfect fit to inspire those who have bigger dreams that God has placed in their heart but are feeling discouraged by their small beginnings. Davis grew up in Central Falls, Rhode Island, one of six children in a poverty-stricken family.
“There was one apartment that we lived in that was just infested with rats,” she recalled in her interview with Jon Wertheim of 60 Minutes. “They were everywhere. They were in the cabinets, they were in the walls, they were under our beds.”
If that weren’t bad enough, Davis said she also remembers “never having any food.”
Despite how bad those times were, Wertheim noted that Davis chooses to “speak very openly about growing up in poverty” and asked her, “Why do you do that?”
Davis answered, “I do that because I think that there's a lot of shame involved with poverty. That you wouldn't be poor if you did the right thing. When you're poor what happens is it seeps through your mind. It's not just a financial state. It's an invisibility state. It's a worthlessness state.”
But Davis’s life story teaches that being worth less financially does not mean being worthless in reality. Today, she is using her platform to touch lives through her art and philanthropy. As previously reported by EEW Magazine Online, Davis has officially joined No Kid Hungry, a national campaign to end childhood hunger, as a national spokesperson.
“The uncertainty of where your next meal will come from is a scary thing, and it consumes every waking moment you have,” she explained when discussing her reasons for joining the noble cause. “I still remember what it was like—the stigma attached to it and the shame—that’s what so many families are going through right now.”
Clearly, her career has come full-circle, as she is now blessed to be a blessing and is helping others see greater possibilities for their own futures.
“I always have to tell myself that I’m not poor anymore, that I’m not that girl anymore,” she said. “But at the same time, I have to honor that young girl and allow her to squeal with delight at the 55-year-old she gets to become.”
