bell hooks was born Gloria Watkins. She decided to use the name bell hooks because it was her grandmother’s name and she wanted to pay homage to her grandmother for her outspokenness and to all of her female ancestors who were “bold and daring in their speech.” She lowercased her name because she declared that her work was in “substance of books, not who I am.” Bell was reared in rural Kentucky. Growing up in the segregated South played a vital role on her resisting racism. She revealed that she was very outspoken as a young girl, her personality was a mixture of “disobedient curiosity and painful reserve.” hooks placed all of her pain into writing in her diary and poetry. hooks went on to receive degrees from Stanford University, University