US author, professor, feminist scholar bell hooks passed away at her home in Kentucky, USA earlier today, December 15, 2021.
bell hooks was an American author, professor, feminist, and social activist. The focus of her writing was the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She published more than 30 books and numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. She addressed race, class, gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism. In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky.
The author was surrounded by her close friends and family at home when she died from an illness, a press release from her niece, Ebony Motley, said. She was 69.
The responses to her passing have been coming from those in the African and Black literary community with either tributes to how her work changed individual lives or even just quotes from here work. Here is a sample of the responses starting with;
Individuals
#RIPbellhooks I’m in shock, along with millions across the world, I’m sure. You gave us so very much. More words when the shock settles. #blackfeminism #bellhooks #bellhooksquote
Pumla Dineo Gqola
I will never forget reading Ain’t I a Woman back in 91, a year in the US. I can still smell the copy and feel the energy of what was a life changing book. I don’t want to fetishize death, we come and go. The only question is whether we were a force for good. And bell hooks was.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
‘Ain’t I a Woman: Black women and Feminism’ by bell hooks was incredibly validating, mind-expanding & feminist-shaping for me in my 20s, when feminism was still white-dominated. Her influence on generations since has been immeasurable. Her legacy lives on.
Bernardine Evaristo
Thank you bell hooks. For me, it was your writings on marriage, partnerships & parenting that helped me learn & unlearn what was needed to move forward. Your work has & will remain a guide for us all.
Raymond Antrobus
RIP bell hooks. Your book Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism spoke to me on so many levels when I first read it in my 20s. The legacy of your work is incalculable. Gone too soon.
Marjorie Blackman
No Black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much’. Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’ … No woman has ever written enough.” – bell hooks, Remembered Rapture: The Writer At Work, 1999
Mona Eltahawy
“Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, has died aged 69. …
published more than 30 books in her lifetime, covering topics including race, feminism, capitalism and intersectionality.”
#RIPbellhooks
Joyce Nyairo
bell hooks (1952-2021) is beyond form, merged with light. Time appears ungenerous.
Ladan Osman
Oh my. bell hooks. She changed everything for us. For the teachings; for the love; for the clarity; for all the ways she could see; for everything. In gratitude, always. Always.
Rest in peace Obaapanyin! Damrifa due!
Kinna Likimani
Do I have the will to mourn?
RIP bell hooks
Nii Ayikwei Parkes
We, the intellectual children of bell hooks, must with determination continue from where she left off, building new just worlds with love, wherever we find ourselves.
Dr Foluke Adebisi
‘Without love our lives are without meaning. Love is the heart of the matter. When all else has fallen away, love sustains.’
Candice Carty-Williams
Thank you bell hooks for your fight, your vision, your love. I am forever grateful for all that you’ve given us. Rest well.
Desiree C. Bailey
The great bell hooks has passed away.
We have lost so very much on this day. So very, very much.
I can’t even find words. I’m so bereft.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
bell hooks?!! i can’t. I CAN’T.
Nnedi Okorafor
I learnt so much from bell hooks. I definitely wouldn’t be the feminist I am without her.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I’m indebted to bell hooks. I know many of us are. Rest in power.
Kaylynn Baron
“rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. healing is an act of communion.”
rest in power, Crown #bellhooks. and thank you
Justin A Reynolds
If you’re drawn to bell hooks’ important reflections on love, but can’t see how fundamentally tied they are to her critiques of patriarchal violence and white supremacy, you are doing an injustice to her life’s work.
Sisonke Msimang
“One of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.”- #bellhooks
Simamkele Dlakavu
The description of patriarchy as a form of psychological terrorism has really given me so much clarity.
Thank you bell hooks. You did the work.
Jamil F Khan
You gave us so so much. Rest in power Queen. I’ll be reading the last few chapters of All About Love tonight. #bellhooks
Maimouna Jallow
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape. -bell hooks
Munyao Kilolo
Organisations
No Black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much’. Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’ … No woman has ever written enough.” – Remembered Rapture: The Writer At Work, 1999
Rest in power, bell hooks.
African Writers Trust
PEN America mourns the death of bell hooks, an inspirational author, professor, and activist. We are beyond grateful for her work on race, gender, and class, as well as her impact on the feminist literary canon.
PEN America
Rest in Power, bell hooks. Thank you for everything…
Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD)
We join our community to mourn the passing of bell hooks – prolific and trailblazing author, poet, feminist, cultural critic, and professor. Below, you’ll find a link to her interview @NPR on the life-changing power of love.
Rest in power, Professor.
Hurston/Wright Foundation for Black writers
“To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help the them to know love.” – @bellhooks
Rest in peace bell hooks, a remarkable womanist scholar and leader.
Cassava Republic
Thank you for everything. Thank you for everything! Rest easy.
The Cheeky Natives
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