R.I.P. bell hooks, trailblazing critical thinker, author, and activist
The prolific feminist theory author and activist died at 69 years old
bell hooks—prolific feminist theorist, author, and activist—died on Wednesday, December 15. hooks died at home surrounded by friends and family after a period of illness, per Lexington Herald Leader. She was 69. The news was confirmed in a press release sent by her niece, Ebony Motley.
In the piece from Lexington Herald Leader, hooks’ friend Linda Strong Leek writes, “She was one of my dearest friends and the world is a lesser place today without her.”
hooks—birth name Gloria Jean Watkins—was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952. She attended segregated schools while growing up, and went on to study at Stanford University. While at Stanford, she wrote the first draft of her debut book Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women And Feminism at 19 years old. She published it a decade later.
This text would lay the foundation for intersectional feminism and Black women’s inclusion in feminist theory. In it, she wrote, “A devaluation of black womanhood occurred as a result of the sexual exploitation of black women during slavery that has not altered in the course of hundreds of years.” Then and now, her work remains radical.
Before publishing Ain’t I A Woman, hooks received an MA in English from the University Of Wisconsin—Madison in 1976, and began her teaching career that year as an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic Studies at USC. While teaching there, she published And There We Wept, a chapbook of poems. It was her first time publishing work under the name “bell hooks.”