Activist and writer bell hooks was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky as Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952.

As a child, hooks performed poetry readings of work by Gwendolyn Brooks, and Langston Hughes. Watkins grew up in a segregated community of the American South. At age 19 she began writing what would become her first full-length book, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, which was published in 1981. She studied English literature at Stanford University (B.A., 1973), the University of Wisconsin (M.A., 1976), and the University of California, Santa Cruz (Ph.D., 1983).

Hooks assumed her pseudonym, the name of her great-grandmother, to honour female legacies; she preferred to spell it in all lowercase letters to focus attention on her message rather than herself. The bell hooks Institute was founded at the college in 2014. Throughout her life, hooks explored the relationship between sexism, racism, and economic disparity in books aimed at scholars and at the public.

hook’s Core Themes:

• Intersectional Feminism

• Race

• Community

• Education

• Gender

• Relationships + Love