bell hooks

#bellhooks

Author, activist and professor, bell hooks focused on the subjects of race, feminism and class. Her gentle but persistent voice moved readers to questions their on biases and presumptions and took monoliths like racism, sexism and capitalism to task, breaking them down with startling intellect and clear, at times poetic language.

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in small town, segregated Kentucky, hooks pushed against convention and the restrictions of her home, struggling “to create self and identity.” She saw both beauty and horror in the world she was raised. She adopted her great-grandmother’s name as her own pen name because she “was known for her snappy and bold tongue.”

Her first major work, ‘Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism’, was written while still an undergraduate. Publishers Weekly has hailed it as “One of the twenty most influential women’s books in the last 20 years.”

hooks published over 30 books, taking a decidedly leftist stance. On reflection she defined identity “...queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

Her book All About Love changed my life