Narrator: Imagine an eight-year-old girl, running. Every day after school, she sprints down the frozen streets of Central Falls, Rhode Island, not for joy, but for survival. Behind her, a pack of boys hurls rocks, bricks, and insults, their voices ringing out with racial slurs. She runs until her lungs burn, until the fear is a physical ache. This isn't a scene from a movie; it was the daily reality for a young Viola Davis. This relentless chase, this feeling of being hunted for being Black and "not pretty," became a defining trauma that would shape her for decades, a ghost that even a shelf full of awards couldn't exorcise. How does a person move from being that terrified, fleeing child to a celebrated, empowered icon?

In her raw and powerful memoir, Finding Me, Viola Davis provides the map. It's a journey not of escaping the past, but of turning around to face it, embrace it, and ultimately, to find the strength and identity that was forged in the fire of her early life.

Narrator: Viola Davis’s story begins with the profound and lasting impact of childhood trauma. Her early years in Central Falls were not just marked by poverty, but by a constant, visceral sense of danger and worthlessness. The most searing example is the daily chase after school. A group of boys made it their ritual to hunt her, shouting that she was ugly and a "Black fucking nigger." This experience became a core memory, a wound that defined her self-perception for years. In a conversation with Will Smith decades later, when he asked, "Viola, who are you?", her immediate answer wasn't about her accolades as an actress. Instead, she confessed, "I’m the little girl who would run after school every day... because these boys hated me because I was... not pretty. Because I was... Black.”

This trauma, coupled with the chaos of a home life plagued by poverty and domestic violence, forced her to develop fierce defense mechanisms. Anger and defiance became her armor. But these coping strategies, while necessary for survival, also isolated her. The book makes it clear that her journey wasn't about "fixing" that broken little girl, but about understanding that the girl was a survivor. It was about integrating that child’s pain and resilience into her adult self, a process that therapy would later illuminate as the true path to healing.

Narrator: In the warzone of her childhood, Davis was not alone. She had her sisters, whom she describes as her "platoon." Together, they were a unit fighting for survival and significance against the overwhelming forces of poverty, violence, and neglect. Their bond was forged in shared experiences, both terrifying and imaginative.

A vivid story from the book illustrates this dynamic perfectly. Their dilapidated apartment at "128" was infested with rats. The sisters developed a system: when a rat was spotted, they would alert Anita, the "brawn" of the group, who would wield a red plastic bat they had won in a drama contest. They worked as a team to corner and kill the vermin. In one harrowing incident, Anita used that same bat to kill a large rat that was crawling on their sleeping mother's pillow, just inches from her mouth. This red bat, a prize from a creative victory, became a weapon for survival, symbolizing their collective strength and resourcefulness. Their sisterhood was their sanctuary, a place where they could also escape into fantasy, pretending to be rich Beverly Hills matrons to momentarily forget the harshness of their reality.

Narrator: Amidst the darkness of her early life, a flicker of light appeared on a television screen. Watching Cicely Tyson’s transformative performance in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a young Viola Davis felt something shift within her. She witnessed an artist using her craft to give voice and dignity to a life, and in that moment, she found her calling. She describes it as a profound realization: "It was like a hand reached for mine and I finally saw my way out."

This newfound purpose wasn't just a dream; it became an active pursuit. She and her sisters, fueled by a desire to be "somebody," created an original skit for a local talent contest. They wrote, directed, and created costumes from thrift store finds, pouring their collective creativity into the project. Their performance won first place, a victory that provided a temporary, but powerful, sense of acceptance and validation. For Davis, acting became more than a career path; it was the perfect alchemy for her pain, a way to channel her struggles into something meaningful and to begin the process of building a new identity, one not defined by the boys who chased her, but by the characters she could bring to life.

Narrator: Achieving her dream of attending Juilliard, one of the world's most prestigious drama schools, was not the fairytale ending one might expect. Instead, it was the beginning of a new, more insidious struggle. The institution’s Eurocentric training pressured her to erase her Blackness, to conform to a standard of performance that felt alien to her lived experience. She was taught to neutralize her voice and her body, effectively being asked to shed the very identity she was trying to understand.

The true turning point came during a trip to The Gambia in West Africa. Immersed in the culture, the music, and the dance, she felt a powerful reconnection to her roots. She witnessed a kind of artistry that was raw, spiritual, and deeply connected to community and healing—a stark contrast to the sterile techniques she was learning in New York. When she performed a monologue from The Colored Museum for the people in a Gambian village, their thunderous, affirming response was a revelation. She realized her experiences, her pain, and her Blackness were not liabilities to be overcome, but were in fact her "warrior fuel." This journey allowed her to return to Juilliard not as a student trying to fit in, but as an artist ready to claim her space and her unique voice.

Narrator: The final leg of Davis's journey is one of profound healing and grace. This involved confronting the most complex relationship of her life: the one with her father. For years, he was a source of terror and violence. Yet, in his later years, he transformed, becoming a doting grandfather. After he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Davis and her family rallied around him. In his final days, she was able to see him not just as her abuser, but as a man with his own history of trauma and pain. Forgiving him was not about excusing his actions, but about releasing herself from the poison of her own anger, allowing her to find peace.

This internal healing paved the way for external love. Feeling lonely despite her professional success, a friend advised her to pray for the man she wanted. She did, listing every quality she desired, from his character to his background. Three weeks later, she met Julius Tennon, an actor and former football player who embodied everything on her list. Their relationship and eventual marriage provided her with the safety, stability, and unconditional love she had never known. By building a new family with Julius and their daughter, Genesis, and by forgiving the family that had hurt her, Viola Davis finally found what she had been running towards all along: a true sense of home, built not on a place, but on love and self-acceptance.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Finding Me is that healing is not about erasing the past, but about owning it. Viola Davis’s journey teaches that our scars are not just marks of pain, but sources of immense strength and power. Her story is a testament to the idea that you cannot find yourself by running from who you are or where you come from. The very experiences that were once a source of deep shame—the poverty, the abuse, the feeling of being an outsider—ultimately became her "warrior fuel," giving her the depth, empathy, and resilience to become the artist and woman she is today.

The book leaves us with a powerful challenge: What if we stopped running from the little boy or girl within us who was scared, hurt, or ashamed? What if, like Viola, we turned around, took their hand, and said, "I own everything that has ever happened to me"? Finding yourself, it seems, is the radical act of finally coming home.