bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins, 1952-2021) was a pioneering feminist whose writings revealed how the specific life experiences of Black women were marginalized by the idea that feminism represented all women equally. A professor of English, African and Afro-American studies, American literature, and women’s studies, she taught at the University of Southern California, Yale, Oberlin College, City College of New York, and Kentucky’s Berea College, which established the bell hooks Institute for her work.
The author of more than thirty books of literary criticism, children’s fiction, poetry, and autobiography, including Killing Rage: Ending Racism, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood, Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life, and Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work, hooks was nominated for the NAACP Image Award, won an American Book Award, and was named one of Time’s 100 Women of the Year in 2020.