Ava DuVernay is black y’all.
The director and producer extraordinaire and all around black girl magic took a dive into her family history on Finding Your Roots with the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr.
In the dive into the past, DuVernay discovers that her ancestors were white French slave owners who fled the revolt in the Haitian Revolution.
Her stepfather’s third great-grandfather, who was an inspiration for DuVernay’s breakout film Selma , was a former slave who registered to vote in the same region where the movie took place, People notes.
However, it was confirmation of her racial background that gave DuVernay a lot of joy and cause for celebration.
In a preview for the show, Gates asks DuVernay to guess her racial background and the despondent director voiced her fear that she would be more than 50 percent European, despite what she’s believed her entire life.
When Gates asked her to turn the page, DuVernay gasps and throws up her hand in the air, giving a gleeful laugh.
“I’m black! I am black!” she rejoiced.
“Welcome back,” Gates quips at her as they laugh.
DuVernay is 57.3 percent African and 41.5 percent European.
“This makes me so happy,” DuVernay tells a laughing Gates.
DuVernay herself shared the clip on her Instagram, thanking Gates for his help.
“Blackness is a beautiful part of my identity. I wish that all African-Americans knew from which our ancestors came,” the caption of the video read in part. “But in the absence of such knowledge, we’ll endeavor to make those that dreamed of us proud anyway. Onward.”
