LOS ANGELES: Viola Davis made Emmy history on Sunday when she won the award for best actress in a drama series, becoming the first black woman to take the honor in the prestigious category.

Davis, who triumphed for her starring role as law school professor Annalise Keating in ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder,” gave an emotional speech as she accepted the honour.

“The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity,” she said.

“You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” Two of the six nominees in the category were black: as well as Davis, there was Taraji P. Henson, who plays hip-hop matriarch Cookie Lyon on Fox’s music melodrama “Empire”.

But it was Davis, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role, who took the award at the 67th Emmys, television’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Accepting her prize at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, the 50-year-old Davis evoked the spirit of African-American freedom fighter Harriet Tubman.

As a middle-aged African-American actress, Davis has spoken often of her frustration at casting directors who are unable to see past the colour of her skin.

“In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line,” she said on Sunday.

“That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s.” She thanked series creator Peter Nowalk, executive producer Shonda Rhimes and others, calling them “people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black”.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2015

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