In Memoriam: bell hooks

bell hooks, largely regarded as the Mother of Black Feminism, died yesterday at the age of 69. We at The Exponent II feel it’s important to honor hooks and her contributions to feminism, academia, social justice, equality, culture, and the general world.

bell hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, KY. Better known by her pen name, “bell hooks,” hooks is an author, professor, social activist, and feminist. Hooks’ academic career began in 1976 as an English professor at the University of Southern California. hooks is the author of many books including the critically acclaimed and the award winning Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, and many more. hooks identified as “queer-pas-gay.” hooks was a professor at Stanford University, Yale University, Oberlin College and City College of New York. In 2004, she joined Berea College as Distinguished Professor in Residence and established the “bell hooks center.” In 2018 she was inducted in the Kentucky’s Writers Hall of Fame.

For more about hooks’ legacy please check out these beautifully written articles and tweets:

bell hooks, Renowned Author and Feminist Scholar, Dead At 69 by Ashley Reese for Jezebel

bell hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69 by Clay Risen for The New York Times

How bell hooks got me through a tumultuous year of my life by Alice Driver for CNN

The world is a lesser place today without her by Linda Blackford for Lexington Herald Leader

The revolutionary writing of bell hooks by Hua Hsu for The New Yorker

Reaching for bell hooks in the Darkness by Brittney Cooper for The Cut

Rest in power, bell hooks