Future re-opening of bell hooks Institute at Berea College announced in celebration of bell’s birthday

September 25 is a very important day on the Berea College campus–it’s the birthday of our beloved bell hooks.  

Dr. bell hooks, born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was one of the foremost cultural critics and feminist thinkers and writers the world has known. During her career, she taught at Stanford, Yale, Oberlin and the City College of New York. Wherever she educated, she was a committed mentor to her students. She also wrote more than 30 books and numerous articles in a host of publications. 

 In 1999, she gave a convocation address at Berea College, about the time when she began sensing a call to return to Kentucky. In 2004, she became a member of the Berea faculty, eventually becoming Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies. In 2015, she established the bell hooks Institute at Berea College and donated her papers to Berea. The College and the world mourned her untimely death on Dec. 15, 2021.

 This year, Berea College will celebrate hooks’ birthday in several ways, including an announcement of the future re-opening of the bell hooks Institute, located at 300 Center Street in Berea. The bell hooks Institute was on hiatus after hooks’ death, and Berea College is thrilled to announce the future re-opening and new era for the Institute, which is made possible through funding from hooks’ estate.

The bell hooks Institute is all about bell hooks–her life, love and legacy. The Institute serves as a hub for hooks’ works, housing her first edition and translated publications as well as material artifacts, including her art collection and original paintings. 

 “It is an honor and privilege to relaunch the bell hooks Institute at Berea College,” said Linda Strong-Leek, executor of bell hooks’ estate and her personal representative. “The bell hooks Institute was bell’s intellectual and heart project. It is about bringing together disparate members of the community, both famous and local, to discuss her works, to have meaningful conversations about the issues that impact our world, and to make progress toward a world where we both see and acknowledge the inherent value in all people. bell wanted people to come to her beloved Kentucky and to recognize that her brilliant intellect was formed in these Kentucky hills.”

 Situated on campus, the bell hooks Institute is where hooks shared robust exchanges with prominent thinkers like Gloria Steinem, Laverne Cox and Cornel West, inviting Bereans to join in community and conversation. 

 “I celebrate the re-opening of the bell hooks Institute in Berea, the best way to celebrate the birthday of a woman who was a unique thinking writer and activist I was lucky to have as a lifetime friend,” said Gloria Steinem, writer, lecturer, political activist and feminist organizer. “Please celebrate for me–and celebrate bell’s spirit for all who did not know her. Then she will be with us still.”

 Berea College President Cheryl Nixon said that “Berea College is thrilled to announce the re-opening of the bell hooks Institute, a cherished space on our campus that not only honors the life and legacy of bell hooks but also embodies her vision of creating a community rooted in love, justice and intellectual rigor. The Institute will serve as a vital resource for students, scholars and the broader community to engage with bell’s transformative works and to continue the conversations she started.”

 Nixon emphasized how at Berea College, “we strive to live up to our ‘one blood, all peoples’ motto. The bell hooks Institute embodies this commitment to radical inclusion and social justice—and it will set the aspirations for Berea and many other institutions and organizations.”

 The College also has a named center after bell, the bell hooks center, located on campus in Draper 106, which remains a programmatic space supportive of students as social justice leaders. Believing, as hooks did, that “feminism is for everybody” and that “patriarchy has no gender,” the center encourages an anti-racist understanding of sex and gender oppression, keeping with Berea College’s founding as the first interracial and co-educational college in the U.S. South. 

 "bell feared that feminism was slowly disappearing from today’s social and political landscape,” Founder and Inaugural Director of the bell hooks center Dr. M. Shadee Malaklou said. “The bell hooks center is a complement to the work of the bell hooks Institute, where students are inspired to continue bell’s important feminist work through programs like the Activist Series.” 

 Together, the bell hooks Institute and the bell hooks center, as well as the bell hooks papers, housed in special collections and archives, reflect Berea College’s continued commitment to the radical inclusion bell hooks championed in her life and work.

 The College will begin a search soon for the executive director of the bell hooks Institute to lead its re-opening and ongoing functions.

 Information on the bell hooks center can be found at https://www.berea.edu/centers/the-bell-hooks-center.