HOPKINSVILLE, KY (CHRISTIAN COUNTY NOW) – Born Gloria Watkins, utilizing the pen name bell hooks, the nationally recognized author and poet is a Hopkinsville native who published over 40 books in her lifetime, with her impact visible to this day around the City of Hopkinsville. The majority of her works focused on themes of feminism, race, and class, with standout titles including All About Love and Bone Black,

Born on Sept. 25, 1952, hooks graduated from Hopkinsville High School and went on to be a professor at multiple colleges. Her books began launching into success in the 1980s, and she eventually won the National Book Award for Fiction and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, according to information from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2010, Berea College in Kentucky opened the bell hooks Institute, which serves as a center for her poems, novels, and personal items.

Her famous pen name was inspired by her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. She chose to adapt it without uppercase spelling to shift attention to her ideas rather than her own identity.

Continuous local support, community keeping memory alive

With hard work from the local bell hooks Legacy Group, and the commitment from her sister Gwenda Motely, bell hooks remains engrained in Hopkinsville. The community is especially celebrating this weekend, honoring what would have been her birthday.

After she passed away in December of 2021 at the age of 69, her sister, who still resides in Hopkinsville, has prioritized introducing her works and life to locals and people throughout the state. bell hooks’ face is proudly displayed on a downtown Hopkinsville mural, there is book club dedicated to her works, a local street is named in her honor outside of the old Carnegie Library, and a wing is dedicated to her in the Pennyroyal Area Museum.

“When you say ‘I would die for you’ to those you love, the truth of those words may be not that you give your physical life but that you are willing to die to the past and be born again in the present where you can live fully and freely – where you can give us the love we need.”

bell hooks, from the memoir Bone Black

Coinciding with her birthday, community members will gather at Hopkinsville Brewing Company for a night of history, where they will walk through the life of bell hooks and share her impact in and beyond Hopkinsville. Motley and Executive Director of the Museums in Hopkinsville will lead the evening, exploring the stories in her book “Bone Black” and revealing the real people, places, and events that inspired the memoir.

The Book & Bottle Shop in downtown Hopkinsville is also dedicating the weekend to bell hooks, by displaying multiple copies of her books for sale. People will have the opportunity to browse her body of work and dive deeper into her books.

Find out more about bell hooks’ legacy in Hopkinsville at the Pennyroyal Area Museum in Hopkinsville.

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