-
Birth of bell hooks
bell hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952 in Hopkinsville, KY. She grew up between the hills and the segregated town. While she would describe Kentucky as a "racial apartheid," she would also credit her commitment to self-determination and activism to “the cultural ethos of the Kentucky backwoods, of the hillbilly country folk who were my ancestors and kin." She would later write about Kentucky and Appalachia, and return in 2004 to teach at Berea College. ("Get to Know bell hooks") -
Brown v. Board of Education
Legally ended segregation in American public schools (National Archives) -
Civil Rights Act
Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, it prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. ("Civil Rights Act (1964)") -
Graduated from Stanford University
She graduated Stanford at 19, and with a draft of her future groundbreaking work on the history of Black womanhood and feminism. Would go on to post graduate studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, Santa Cruz. (Hsu) -
Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism
In 1981, under her new name bell hooks, she published the work she began at Stanford. This groundbreaking work was not only a history of slavery, but also a history of the legacy of slavery and the ongoing dehumanization of Black women. It was also a critique of the revolutionary politics that had arisen in response to centuries of dehumanization - politics that still tended to center the male perspective. She believed real liberation would need to reckon with all aspects of identity. (Hsu) -
Feminist theory: From margin to center
One of her most well-known and most groundbreaking works. She critiqued existing feminist discourse at the time, revealing that existing feminist thought was excluding women who weren't white and privileged. In this work she brings to light the interrelated forms of oppression - such as racism, classism, and imperialism - and how they are interconnected. For bell hooks, feminism is more than just a movement for equality - it is a movement to end oppression and exploitation in all forms (Biana) -
Talking back: Talking feminist, thinking black
In this work, bell hooks encourages Black women to use their voice, to talk back. She sees silence as a condition of oppression, and describes her upbringing as enforcing silence. (Strumm) She writes: “for us, true speaking is not solely an expression of creative power, it is an act of resistance, a political gesture that challenges politics of domination that would render us nameless and voiceless." (qtd. in Strumm) For hooks, defiance creates change. -
Talking back and the name bell hooks
In Talking Back, bell hooks wrote that even into adulthood she felt the same fear she felt as a child when using her voice (Strumm). She chose her name bell hooks to honor her great grandmother, without capitalization to distinguish herself from her grandmother and to suggest that what mattered most was the substance of the work, not only the author (Hsu). However, she also chose the name to "challenge and subdue all impulses leading me away from speech into silence." (hooks qtd. in Strumm) -
A seeker on a path: bell hooks interview in Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine
"If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love." (hooks) The core of bell hooks' feminism and feminist theory is love. -
A seeker on a path: bell hooks interview in Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine (continued)
Love is central to bell hooks' feminism because she sees it as an essential part of recognizing the suffering of others, and working towards societal change: To be capable of love one has to be capable of suffering and of acknowledging one’s suffering. We all suffer, rich and poor. [...] And we are weakened by nihilism." (hooks) Photos from the article taken by Jeri Coppola -
Featured in Ms. Magazine
("Get to Know bell hooks") -
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
Anson Au's 2022 article describes the overarching concern of bell hooks' 1994 work Teaching to Transgress as "effecting the conditions that would enable everyone to ‘live, teach, and work . . . [in ways that] reflect our joy in cultural diversity, our passion for justice, and our love of freedom.’" (Au; hooks qtd. in Au) bell hooks saw academia as a place where she could create real change. -
Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work
"That moment when I whirl with words, when I dance in that ecstatic circle of love surrounded by ideas, is a space of transgression. There are no binding limitations; everything can both be held and left behind—race, gender, class." (hooks, qtd. in Strumm) hooks saw her writing as transgressive, as transformative, as an expression of love. -
Speaking Freely Interview
In a 2002 interview, bell hooks returned to the concept of love: "Living as we do in a culture of domination, to truly choose to love is heroic." ("Speaking Freely: Bell Hooks") "Speaking Freely: Bell Hooks" -
Joined faculty of Berea College
bell hooks decided to return to her home state of Kentucky in 2004, drawn by Berea's anti-racist beginnings and a desire to return home. “I felt very much that I wanted to give back to the world I came from. I grew up in the hills of Kentucky, and I wanted these students to see you can be a cosmopolitan person of the world but still be connected positively to your home roots." Berea would become the home of the bell hooks Institute. ("Get to Know bell hooks") -
Belonging: A Culture of Place
In 2009, after her return to Kentucky, bell hooks wrote Belonging: A Culture of Place. This work is subversive in its turn from the productivity-oriented world of Western academia, and the desire to remain geographically and politically neutral (Ohman). bell hooks proposes the sustainability isn't just about the environment, but also about how we live our lives in relation to place and meaning. -
Quote from Belonging: A Culture of Place
"Can we embrace an ethos of sustainability that is not solely about the appropriate care of the world’s resources, but is also about the creation of meaning—the making of lives that we feel are worth living. [ . . . ] Again and again as I travel around I am stunned by how many citizens in our nation feel lost, feel bereft of a sense of direction, feel as though they cannot see where our journeys lead, that they cannot know where they are going. Many folks feel no sense of place." (qtd. in Ohman) -
Inaugural event of the bell hooks Institute
The opening event of the bell hooks Institute featured noted trans actress and activist Laverne Cox, who added "cis" and "heteronormative" to hooks’ call to dismantle “imperialist-white-supremacist-capitalist- patriarchy.” ("Get to Know bell hooks") -
Dedicated her papers to Berea College
Dedicated her papers - letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia - to Berea College -
Honored as on of TIME magazine's "100 Women of the Year"
("Get to Know bell hooks") -
Died at her home in Kentucky
Over her lifetime, she published nearly forty books, and wrote hundreds of articles for magazines, journals, and newspapers. One of her most influential ideas was the "oppositional gaze" - a confrontational way of looking, of flipping power dynamics. (Hsu)