Viola Davis's success story is a true testament that shows one's past circumstances does not dictate one's future.

In the cover story for the new issue of People magazine, the Oscar winner shared her rags to riches journey, movingly detailing the one photo she has from her childhood and how she persevered through her scarce early years.

"The only picture I have of my childhood is the picture of me in kindergarten," she said, mentioning that her family did not have enough money for a camera. "I have this expression on my face — it's not a smile, it's not a frown. I swear to you, that's the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, 'I cannot believe how God has blessed me.'"

The actress spent her early childhood years in an impoverished environment consisting of a one-room shack on her grandmother's farm which served as a former slave plantation where her grandfather worked.

Her mother and father, Mae Alice and Dan, moved to Rhode Island shortly after she was born, struggling to make enough money to support Davis and her five siblings. She explained that they were plagued with several hardships, like hunger, poor living conditions and racist attacks from bullies at school.

"I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me," she said. "Our environment, our physical space reflected our income... The boards were coming off the walls."

She saw her humble beginnings as motivation to want better for herself when she became of age to self-provide.

"It became motivation as opposed to something else — the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don't see you," she said. "I chose from a very young age that I didn't want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it."

Truly inspiring. 

See how the Twitter community reacted to the actress's deserving Oscar win and her amazing speech below:

See how the actress won big at the Oscars in the BET Breaks video above.