Acclaimed author and activist bell hooks died on Wednesday. She was 69.
Hooks, whose real name is Gloria Jean Watkins, was born on Sept. 25, 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Her first published work, a book of poems titled "And There We Wept," was released in 1978. She went on to publish her first book "Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism" in 1981.
Berea College in Kentucky, where hooks worked as a professor, said she died following an undisclosed illness.
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