Gloria Watkins, better known as bell hooks, was born September 25, 1952, to a mother who was a homemaker and a father who worked as a custodian. hooks was a professor, social activist, public intellectual, cultural critic, feminist and author of 40 books, including Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, Black Looks: Race and Representation, Reel to Real, and All About Love: New Visions. In 2014, the bell hooks Institute was founded at Berea College in Kentucky. In 2021, hooks died of kidney failure at her home, following a brief period of illness.
