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Acclaimed author and feminist bell hooks dies at 69

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 12/15/21

Groundbreaking author and feminist bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) passed away at 69 years old.

Berea College, where hooks held the title of distinguished professor in residence in Appalachian studies, announced that she died at her home in Berea, Ky., on Wednesday (Dec. 15) "after an extended illness."

According to the Washington Post, hooks' sister Gwenda Motley confirmed the cause as end-stage renal failure.

"Raised in a racially segregated town in rural Kentucky, Dr. hooks rose to become one of the most prominent feminist writers and theorists of her generation," the Post continued. "A poet, memoirist, social critic and longtime professor at Berea College, she wrote more than 30 books, mixing the personal and the political in essays that examined Madonna music videos, Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the representation of Black Americans in film and the nature of love."

Tributes immediately poured out across Twitter:

If you're just learning about bell hooks, there's no shame. You can always read her words and meet her on the page.
— Raquel Willis (@RaquelWillis_) December 15, 2021

Rest In Peace and Power, bell hooks.

Thank you for everything. pic.twitter.com/3oaIdTrAfD
— Black Women Radicals (@blkwomenradical) December 15, 2021

The late bell hooks discusses masculinity, patriarchy, politics, and parenting. https://t.co/HlzLWArD2r
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 15, 2021

it is not hyperbole to say bell hooks saved me and so many of the women i've been blessed to move through this life alongside. what an incalculable loss, my goodness
— Hannah Giorgis | ሐና ጊዮርጊስ (@hannahgiorgis) December 15, 2021

The loss of bell hooks is a loss first and foremost for Kentucky & black Appalachia. Her book, belonging: a culture of place, noted the below in its salient preface: "Many folks feel no sense of place. What they know, what they have, is a sense of crisis, of impending doom." pic.twitter.com/iyMlxKdrpM
— Rahawa Haile (@RahawaHaile) December 15, 2021

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.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) December 15, 2021

Oh my heart. bell hooks. May she rest in power. Her loss is incalculable.
— roxane gay (@rgay) December 15, 2021

“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
— Clarkisha (@IWriteAllDay_) December 15, 2021

bell hooks on the radical uses of Black art: "We create collective awareness of the radical place that art occupies within the freedom struggle and of the way in which experiencing art can enhance our understanding of what it means to live as free subjects in an unfree world."
— Scalawag (@scalawagmag) December 15, 2021