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Gloria Jean Watkins or “bell hooks”: A Feminist Legend

Note : bell hooks prefers her name not to be capitalized to not take away from her message.

Gloria Jean Watkins was born September 25, 1952 in Hospkinville, Kentucky. She is also known more famously by her pen name, bell hooks. bell hooks is the borrowed name of Gloria's great grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

hooks is a famous American scholar,  writer, and activist who worked on examining the connections between gender, race, and class. Her first full-length book, Ain't I A Woman is her most famous piece of work that has become a staple to the study of feminist literature.

In her book, hooks examines the history of black womanhood, slavery, and its impacts of sexism towards black women and men. She calls her book, "a love letter from me to Black women." Her work also focuses on the racism within the feminist movement and how Black women have played vital and historical roles in the feminist movement, but moved aside due to race.

hooks paved the way for intersectional feminism through her literature and writing. Her experience as a Black women growing up in the South exposed her to social and racial oppression from a young age.

hooks has always identified herself as a feminist first. She famously calls for the feminist movement to include more than the white, middle-upper class women who have been recognized as primary contributors to the feminist movement. Women's activism must include all women, or it is not a feminist movement at all.

hooks' understanding of the history of Black women has shaped today's perceptions, opportunities, and oppression of them. Black women are leaders, teachers, and beautiful parts of society that are not recognized this way because of the history that follows them.

hooks continues working to push the narratives of Black women off of the back shelf and into the ongoing development of feminist theories in literature as she has done to her own.

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Angela Davis: Radical Educator

Angela Davis was born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Her experience of racial prejudice started at a young age as her neighbourhood was nicknamed "Dynamite Hill" because of the number of homes targeted by the Ku Klux Klan.

As a young adult, Davis moved to Massachusetts to study philosophy and later as a graduate student joined the Black Panther political party. Her association to the party limited her life as a professor and she was rejected from many spaces within academia.

Davis's work as an activist is constantly met with confrontation from law enforcement. She has been arrested multiple times and acquitted on charges that are racially motivated to silence her powerful and outspoken opinions on American politics.

She is a leader amongst a generations of activists responding to racial injustice. Progressive Americans stand by her movement of antiracist, anticapitalist, antisexist, and antiwar activism. She has put her own freedom on the line to defend women, prisoners, and low-income people.

Her work is revolutionary in the fact that she was standing up for Black Americans and standing up against the racism so deeply ingrained into American society at a time when few Americans would. It explains why she was commonly met with the threat of punishment and silence, but she persevered and is a legend to Black feminism.

Davis was part of TIME's list of most influential Women of the last decade and continues her work in antiracist activism today.

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Audre Lorde: Black, Lesbian, Mother, Warrior, Poet.

Audre Lorde lived her life with the demand that her voice be heard. During her lifetime from 1934-1992, Lorde was one of the first to claim that the LGBTQ+ community is one where racism prevailed. Her recognition of identity politics as a form of oppression between these marginalized groups is a revolutionary part of her work.

Lorde was a visionary, who identified internalized racism and homophobia as a young child. Her book, Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name is a biomythography combining history, biography, and myth to tell her story as a young Black lesbian growing up in Harlam. She writes about the power within herself and the power of women who she encounters throughout her life.

Her lifelong dedication to confronting injustices of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, and homophobia are achieved through her speeches, essays, poetry, books, and the captivity of her messages. Lorde is also the founder of many organizations to assist women from various walks of life to succeed despite their experiences of injustices under American politics and colonialism.

One of Lorde's many famous essays is titled The Uses Of Anger: Women Responding To Racism and is a powerful response to confronting racism with anger and using that anger to persevere through the backlash, the privilege, and the hate that Black women endure. Her essay is reflective, confrontational, and illuminates her power.

Audre Lorde is a renowned feminist who changed the face of identity politics and confronted issues that affected her own life through her talent for writing.

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Revolution is not a one time thing

Audre Lorde

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If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.

Audre Lorde (via taters4terone)

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Masses of people think that feminism is always and only seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from the patriarchal mass media

bell hooks

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Black History Heroes - Bell Hooks

Artist: Krista Nicole

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“No women who chooses to be self loving ever regrets her choice” - COMMUNION/THE FEMALE SEARCH FOR LOVE by bell books

Happy Hump Day BBs, I know I haven’t posted in a while, thanks for still being here. I’ve been working really hard and also having some health challenges, I decided to revisit this beautiful book by bell hooks this past weekend while nursing my body, I wanted to re-examine my views on self love and relationships in a way that was challenging but also felt compassionate. This book is gold and one of the few self help books I would actually recommend cause it takes patriarchy to task and helps to establish feminism as a foundation for self care and a self loving practice. I’m sure you all already know that everything is political including the way we love ourselves and others. I appreciate her speaking to women in a way that is frank and plain, and she actually got me believing in love again. Imagine that 😝😝 It’s the third part in a series of books in which Love is the theme and I feel all three are just required reading for Black folks (all folks actually) interested in building healthy relationships and healthy communities. Book one is - ALL ABOUT LOVE, book two is SALVATION, and this one COMMUNION directed to women specifically is book three. I know bell hooks has been problematic in some ways but I still lean into her work often when it comes to self inquiry and radical feminist thought. Also I am fascinated by how my perspective shifts based on who I’m loving and how I’m being loved, my goal is to consistently generate love in my life, no matter what is happening, be able to freely give and receive it in multiple ways. It’s a liberating practice that takes work and creativity. Thank Goddess for books that help to guide the vibration 🖤

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Happy birthday to the revolutionary soul that is Angela Davis ❤️ forever thankful for her contributions and conditioned plight for justice ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻 This was filmed in 1972 while being interviewed inside prison. #angeladavis

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The Women of the Black Panther Party

Each spring semester the University Library System, in collaboration with Pitt’s Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR), award ten students with the Archival Scholars Research Award (ASRA). This semester, seven of those students are working in Special Collections. Each month, we ask the scholars to submit blog posts on the discoveries they are making. This week we will feature their last  installments.

The cover of The Black Panther , June 10, 1972.

The leadership body of the Black Panther Party was originally entirely male, and remained so for well over a year, until Kathleen Cleaver was appointed to the role of communications secretary. As the years passed, however, the influence that women had within the Party grew. Most notably, Huey P. Newton’s 1974 flight to Cuba left a vacancy in the leadership body that was assumed by Elaine Brown. She had previously been the Minister of Information, assuming the role after Eldridge Cleaver’s departure. During this time, she directed national Party activities and initiatives, traveling around the United States to give talks and conduct programs. She remained in this position until 1977, when she left the Party to raise her daughter.

Ericka Huggins, another Party leader, had been highly publicized since her 1970 arrest as part of the New Haven Panther Trials. The slogan, “Free Ericka!” had been emblazoned on buttons and posters, and was featured with great frequency on the pages of The Black Panther . After her acquittal, Huggins became involved in local institutional politics, elected to the Oakland City School Board.

Angela Davis was also an important figure in the Party, though she was not an official member. As a prominent CPUSA member, she worked closely with the Panthers on many campaigns, and the Panthers vocally supported her movements, often calling for her acquittal from various charges. Largely considered a terrorist, Davis spent many months as a fugitive, avoiding arrest for her role in the death of Judge Harold Haley; this led to J. Edgar Hoover putting her on the F.B.I.’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, making her the third woman ever to be designated so.

Though the Panthers had historically been opposed to working from within the system to reform, Brown’s leadership ushered in a new wave of comparative moderation. She, too, ran for city office, and though not elected, The Black Panther continued to chronicle this ideological shift. Extensive coverage was given concerning education, focusing particularly on the barriers that black children faced in learning and publicizing the curriculum of the Panther-run Oakland City School. They also began giving ad space to local black businesses, the owners of which had previously been identified as complicit in the subjugation of the black lower class, and included new sections pertaining to sports and entertainment. The newspaper did, however, remain staunchly anti-federal government: there was ample coverage of U.S. lack of involvement in South Africa, COINTELPRO investigations of civil rights leaders, and accusations government conspiracies relating to the Jonestown Massacre.

-Maureen Jones, Archival Scholars Research Awardee ‘17