Hooks’ intellect was boundless, and she wrote seemingly about everything. In her too short life - she died at 69 - she wrote more than 40 books, including the influential work she began as an undergraduate at Stanford, the 1981 Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism. hooks’ influence on social justice education was so immense and so longstanding that we may not even recognize all the ways she touched our vision of the world - and our classrooms. Getty Imagesīell hooks - brilliant, defiant, prophetic - died on Dec. no, it was those mystical experiences that enabled me to understand and recognize the realm of being in a spiritual experience that transcends both authority and law.Bell hooks signs her book for Robert Wood, 6, during the celebration of Karibu Books’ 10th anniversary at Prince George’s Plaza in Hyattsville, MD. The more fundamental religious beliefs that were taught to me urging blind obedience to authority and acceptance of oppressive hierarchies- this didn't move me. In reflecting on my youth, I emphasize the mystical dimension of the Christian faith because it was that aspect of religious experience that I found to be truly liberatory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.' To know the truth is to prepare for it for it is not mainly reflection and theory. 'If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. The black theologian James Cone says that our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived: I was determined to live a life in the spirit.

Early on, I made a commitment to be a seeker on the path: a seeker after truth. At that time, when I had not yet learned the right language, I knew only that despite the troubles of my world, the suffering I witnessed around and within me, there was always available a spiritual force that could lift me higher, that could give me moments of transcendent bliss wherein I could surrender all thought of the world and know profound peace.Įarly on, my heart had been touched by its delight. As a girl, touched by the mystical dimensions of Christian faith, I felt the presence of the Beloved in my heart: the oneness of our life.

Bell hooks on teaching