This is Leah Erdmann with the Sioux City Public Library, and you're listening to Check It Out.
You may recognize Viola Davis from her Oscar-winning performances in films including The Help, Doubt, and Fences, but in her 2022 memoir Finding Me, the actress provides insight into who she is off-screen. SeeingDavis in movies or on the red carpet, she is refined and graceful, self-assured, and radiates confidence. Her story is a further testament that you can never tell what someone has gone through just by looking at them.
Born into a Black American family in the divided, hostile social climate of 1960s America, Davis’s childhood was deeply impacted by racial inequality, poverty, substance abuse, physical violence, and sexual assault. She knew few comforts and no peace inside or outside her home. She relays in harrowing detail being bullied and beaten at school because of the color of her skin. Parental neglect and her circumstantial inability to maintain hygiene ostracized Davis further, and she recounts many sleepless nights due to a trauma-induced habit of bedwetting and rat infestations.
She grew into adulthood without being given the tools necessary to heal from her trauma, and as she fought her way to Juilliard, and eventually to her first Oscar, in a tumultuous journey of self-discovery, she carried that broken little girl with her. Davis examines themes including racism, misogyny, and colorism, particularly as they exist in the entertainment industry, with a brutal honesty not commonly found in celebrity memoirs. She is a true testament to perseverance and learning how to heal and rise above not by forgiving and forgetting, but with finding grace and gratitude for your past selves and what they endured.
Check out Finding Me and other great memoirs at the Sioux City Public Library!
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Verde Outdoor Media.