Viola Davis spoke with conviction during her Women’s March speech Saturday in Los Angeles, saying the names of black women that have been victims of sexual assault.
“In 1877, America, put laws in place called the Jim Crow laws,” she said in her powerful speech. “It told us that we were less than and it came on the heels of the 13th amendment.”
“And like the originators, the Fannie Lou Hamers, the Recy Taylors… to the Tarana Burkes, to the first women to speak out, it cost them something,” she added. “Nothing and no one can be great without a cost. I am always introduced as an award-winning actor, but my testimony is one of poverty, of one being assaulted, seeing a childhood that was robbed from me. I know that every single day when I think of that, I know the trauma of those events are still with me today.”
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