Viola Davis buys former plantation where she was born: ‘I own it. All of it’

American actor Viola Davis marked her 55th birthday by going forth with a powerful move of purchasing the plantation where she was born.

The Help actor turned to Instagram to announce that she had bought the Singleton Plantation, a former plantation in St. Matthews, South Carolina where she was born.

"The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life....I own it....all of it,” she wrote, adding: "'May you live long enough to know why you were born.' -Cherokee Birth Blessing.”

She had earlier opened up about the plantation and its dark history during an interview with People’s The Jess Cagle Interview show in 2016.

“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. 160 acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper,” she added.

“Most of my uncles and cousins, they’re farmers. That’s the choice that they had. 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 went on to detail how despite adversity, her family still felt genuine happiness while living there.

"[There was] no running water. No bathroom. It’s just an outhouse. But 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 said she ate a sardine, mustard, onion, tomato sandwich after I was born,” she said.

"I love that story. It’s a great story to me. It’s a great story of celebration in the midst of what you would feel is a decimated environment, but you could see the joy and the life that can come out of that, because it’s not always about things, you know."