Viola Davis Receives Prestigious Chairman's Prize At NAACP Image Awards

“There is no becoming without healing and without a radical acceptance of one’s truth,” Davis said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Viola Davis delivered a powerful speech about self-worth, resilience and collective progress on the 57th NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night, telling the audience that personal and national growth require confronting truth and hardship.

“There is no becoming without healing and without a radical acceptance of one’s truth,” Davis said after receiving the NAACP’s Chairman’s Award at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium near Los Angeles. “We either move forward together or not at all.”

The Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy winner reflected on her journey from childhood poverty in Rhode Island to international success, saying, “I just wanted to be somebody. I wanted success because I thought it was significance.”

Davis, 60, has earned widespread acclaim for performances in films including “The Help,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Doubt,” while also captivating television audiences in the legal drama “How to Get Away With Murder.” She achieved EGOT status after winning a Grammy for the audiobook version of her memoir, “Finding Me,” adding to two Tonys, an Emmy and an Academy Award for the film adaptation of “Fences.”

“No one can describe the journey of going from the little chocolate girl searching for hope,” Davis said, “to the girl living a transcendent life.”