Editing Bell hooks (section)

==Early life==
Gloria Jean Watkins was born on September 25, 1952, to a working-class African-American family, in [[Hopkinsville]],<ref name="nytobit">{{Cite news|last=Risen|first=Clay|date=December 15, 2021|title=Bell Hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/books/bell-hooks-dead.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|issn=0362-4331|url-access=subscription|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215211938/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/books/bell-hooks-dead.html|url-status=live}}</ref> a small, [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregated]] town in [[Kentucky]].<ref name="medea1997">{{Cite book|last=Medea|first=Andra|title=Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America|publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Facts on File]]|year=1997|isbn=0-8160-3425-7|editor-last=Hine|editor-first=Darlene Clark|editor-link=Darlene Clark Hine|location=New York|pages=[[iarchive:blackwomeninamer00edit 0/page/100/mode/1up|100–101]]|chapter=hooks, bell (1952–)|oclc=35209436}}</ref> Watkins was one of six children born to Rosa Bell Watkins (''née'' Oldham) and Veodis Watkins.<ref name="Hsu-2021"/> Her father worked as a janitor and her mother worked as a maid in the homes of white families.<ref name="Hsu-2021"/> In her memoir ''[[Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood]]'' (1996), Watkins would write of her "struggle to create self and identity" while growing up in "a rich magical world of southern black culture that was sometimes paradisiacal and at other times terrifying".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bell-hooks/bone-black/|title=Bone Black|date=August 15, 1996|work=[[Kirkus Reviews]]|access-date=December 22, 2021}}</ref>

An avid reader (with poets [[William Wordsworth]], [[Langston Hughes]], [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] and [[Gwendolyn Brooks]] among her favorites),<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary|title=Bell Hooks obituary {{!}} Trailblazing writer, activist and cultural theorist who made a pivotal contribution to Black feminist thought|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|first=Margaret|last=Busby|author-link=Margaret Busby|date=December 17, 2021}}</ref> Watkins was educated in [[School segregation in the United States|racially segregated]] [[Public school (government funded)|public schools]], later moving to an [[Racial integration|integrated]] school in the late 1960s.<ref name="leblanc1997"/> This experience greatly influenced her perspective as an educator, and it inspired scholarship on education practices as seen in her book, ''Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Teaching to Transgress – Books |url=https://actbuildchange.com/books/teaching-to-transgress/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |website=Act Build Change |date=July 14, 2020 |language=en-GB}}</ref> She graduated from [[Hopkinsville High School]] before obtaining her BA in English from [[Stanford University]] in 1973,<ref name="kumar2007">{{Cite book|title=Something about the Author|publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Gale]]|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4144-1071-5|editor-last=Kumar|editor-first=Lisa|volume=170|pages=[[iarchive:somethingaboutau00lisa 1/page/116/mode/1up|112–116]]|chapter=hooks, bell 1952–|issn=0276-816X|oclc=507358041}}</ref> and her [[Master of Arts|MA]] in English from the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] in 1976.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Significant Contemporary American Feminists: A Biographical Sourcebook|last=Scanlon|first=Jennifer|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0313301254|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/significantconte00scan/page/125 125–132]|url=https://archive.org/details/significantconte00scan/page/125}}</ref> During this time, Watkins was writing her book ''[[Ain't I a Woman (book)|Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism]]'', which she began writing at the age of 19 ({{c.}} 1971)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Remembering Bell Hooks (1952-2021)|url=https://somethingcurated.com/2021/12/20/remembering-bell-hooks-1952-2021/|date=December 2021}}</ref> and then published (as bell hooks) in 1981.<ref name="Encyclopaedia Britannica"/>

In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, hooks completed her doctorate in English at the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]], with a [[dissertation]] on author [[Toni Morrison]] entitled "Keeping a Hold on Life: Reading Toni Morrison's Fiction".<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=Keeping a hold on life: reading Toni Morrison's fiction|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9514473|date=1983|language=en|first=bell|last=hooks|oclc=9514473|access-date=December 15, 2021|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215190840/https://www.worldcat.org/title/keeping-a-hold-on-life-reading-toni-morrisons-fiction/oclc/9514473|url-status=live}} WorldCat.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dlixAAAAIAAJ|first=bell|last=hooks|title=Keeping a Hold on Life: Reading Toni Morrison's Fiction|publisher=University of California, Santa Cruz|date= 1983}}</ref>