The hills of Kentucky are enveloped in a legacy of resistance — first against the white colonizers who touched the Indigenous land we now call America, and later against a state that confined an increasingly nonconformist working class, derogatorily designated as “hillbillies.” Within the crevices of Appalachian dissent and Southern discontent, Bell Hooks, née Gloria Watkins, was born in the small town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952. Her chosen name, “Bell Hooks,” was an homage to her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, and styled in lowercase to decenter herself, focusing instead on the work she would go on to produce. Hooks published over 30 books and countless scholarly articles, serving as a lodestar for decades of Black feminist writing and scholarship before her untimely passing at 69.

From Kentucky to Academia

Although Hooks eventually left Kentucky, citing her family’s move away from the hillsides and the racialized violence that framed her childhood in the 1950s and ’60s, the spirit of Black self-determination forged in the Kentucky hills remained with her. She studied at Stanford, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and UC Santa Cruz, where she brought a commitment to community and critical thought into the often confined spaces of academia. By 19, hooks had begun writing her first significant work, Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (published in 1981). In it, she introduced the now-canonical phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” prefiguring the discourse of intersectionality before it became mainstream. Radical possibilities informed her work: For Hooks, individuals were not exclusively defined by any single classification as long as they were fully present in all of them.

Love as Resistance: Hooks’ Vision of Healing and Justice

Love was the cornerstone of integrity and was a central pillar in Hooks’ life. In a society that commodified love, hooks sought to reclaim it as an act of resistance and healing. Her 1993 work Sisters of the Yam provided Black women a link between self-healing and political resistance. Later, in All About Love (1999), she reframed Black women’s understanding of compassion, care, and freedom. For Hooks, love could not be separated from justice. In the seminal 2000 text Feminism is for Everybody, she reinforced the connection between these two powerful forces: “Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression,” Hooks declared, advocating a holistic understanding of love and justice.

The Intersection of Theory and Cultural Criticism

Hooks’ range as a thinker was vast, from feminist theory to self-help and cultural criticism. Her 1992 essay “Gangsta Culture — Sexism and Misogyny” was a provocative critique of reductive interpretations of Feminism, coupled with empathy for Black men who were both the judges and the capitalist products of the very subculture they navigated. Additionally, her work “Eating the Other” articulated how Black culture was commodified and exploited in popular media. For Black feminists in film criticism, “The Oppositional Gaze” remains foundational, illuminating the relationship between spectatorship and race. Even in the often-overlooked realm of fine arts, hooks made significant contributions with works such as Art on My Mind.

The Courage to Speak: Hooks’ Enduring Impact

It is difficult to calculate the courage it took for Bell Hooks to be an early architect of concepts now considered self-evident. She viewed her work as one of the purest expressions of love for Black people — a belief in the potential for more, a demand for greater understanding. As a poet, children’s book author, and educator, hooks’ work resonated deeply across multiple fields. Whether teaching students at Yale, the City College of New York, or Berea College in Kentucky (where she established the Bell Hooks Institute in 2010), hooks brought compassionate critical thought into her classrooms. Her works Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community remain vital reminders of how education can be a practice of freedom and hope.

Criticism and Misinterpretation

As with any groundbreaking thinker, hooks faced repudiations and misreadings. One notable example is a passage from her 1990 work Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics about the Exonerated 5, often misinterpreted as a statement of guilt rather than a critique of how both patriarchy and white supremacy victimize Black men. Hooks’ critiques of Black cultural figures, such as Spike Lee and Beyoncé, also sparked controversy. Despite these challenges, many contemporary debates about representation, art, and capitalism echo conversations Hooks initiated decades ago. As the saying goes, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Bell Hooks’ Enduring Legacy

Without exaggeration, Bell Hooks changed the world. “I am a fortunate writer because every day of my life, I get a letter, a phone message, from someone who tells me how my work has transformed their life,” she remarked during her 2018 Kentucky Hall of Fame induction. Thanks to Hooks, Black writers and thinkers felt empowered to explore the complexities of Black life and love, giving them the same gravitas as other academic subjects. Hooks taught us to acknowledge grief as part of healing and love.

A Final Reflection

In Belonging to a Culture of Place, hooks writes: “Choosing a place to die is as vital as choosing where and how to live. Choosing to return to the land and landscape of my childhood, the woods of my Kentucky upbringing, I am comforted by the knowledge that I could die here.” Hooks embraced the land and people that shaped her through her profound connection to her Kentucky roots, carrying forward her intergenerational legacy of love and resistance. Above all, I hope she found the love she wished for us among the Kentucky hills she cherished. Whether or not she did, I am confident she never stopped trying, and as long as bell hooks remain part of our memory, we never will, either.