The author was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on September 25, 1952, under the birth name Gloria Jean Watkins. She chose to write using her great grandmother’s name, Bell Hooks, as a pen name in order to honor the women in her bloodline. She de-capitalized the first letters in her pen name in order to place greater emphasis on her ideas rather than the author behind them.

Many view hooks’ works on the intersections of race, gender, politics, oppression and love to be groundbreaking and accessible. She said she was inspired by the work of the Black civil rights figures like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and gay anti-racist writer James Baldwin.

During her lifetime, hooks published at least 40 books—including five children’s books—and taught at Yale University, Oberlin College and City College of New York.

In remembrance of her passing, Ibram X. Kendi, author ofHow to Be an Antiracist, wrote, “The passing of bell hooks hurts, deeply. At the same time, as a human being I feel so grateful she gave humanity so many gifts. AIN’T I A WOMAN: BLACK WOMEN AND FEMINISM is one of her many classics. And ALL ABOUT LOVE changed me. Thank you, bell hooks. Rest in our love.”

Bolu Babalola, author of Love in Colour, wrote, “bell hooks wrote directly for and to Black women, and it is a beautiful thing that everyone can learn from her, but her soul-filled love for us was so apparent in her work.”

Cornel West, a Black intellectual who co-authored breaking bread: insurgent black intellectual life with hooks, wrote, “This sad season of massive deaths is nearly killing me! From my precious Mom to five eulogies in one week, and now my very dear sister bell hooks! She was an intellectual giant, spiritual genius & freest of persons! We shall never forget her!”

Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, wrote, “bell hooks was an extraordinary writer, thinker, and scholar who gave us new language with which to make sense of the world around us. Her work was imbued with a deep commitment to truth-telling, but also with a profound sense of care and love for community. She was a treasure.”

Jeremy Harris, author of Slave Play, wrote, “a friend reached out to me about bell hooks a few days ago hoping I could help facilitate one of her last requests: to have a conversation with the minds that had fascinated her. I did my best and a connection was made. Till the end she desired robust thought & connection. RIP”

Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of the book Thick and Other Essays, wrote, “The entirety of my intellectual and creative project is this: ‘marginality [is] much more than a site of deprivation; in fact I was saying just the opposite, that it is also the site of radical possibility, a space of resistance.’ Indebted, as we all are to bell hooks.”

Jude Doyle, author of Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear… and Why, wrote, “I’m sure there will be a lot of bell hooks remembrances, but what I appreciated about her, in a time when feminism was increasingly abstruse and academic, was the clarity and openness of her prose, and her faith that these complicated ideas were for everybody who needed them.”

Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our Lives, wrote, “As a first generation college student, bell hooks was the first writer I encountered via academia whose work I was able to enthusiastically discuss with friends and fam outside academia. My mom and I read bell hooks together. I’ll always cherish the way her work bridged shores.”

Feminist media critic and video game scholar Anita Sarkeesian wrote, “hooks so deeply cared about social justice and knew that academic speak was alienating so she wrote in ways that everyone could understand, without simplifying the concepts. She taught me that being accessible was not in conflict with complexity.”

Shanita Hubbard, author of the upcoming book Miseducation: A Woman’s Guide To Hip-Hop, wrote, “If you’re a Black woman who centers Black women in your work then you were influenced by bell hooks in some capacity—whether you realize it or not.”