It all started for me with the book Salvation: Black People and Love by Bell Hooks. I can’t tell you how I came across the book. I can just tell you that it and she changed my life. A historical and cultural perspective of the transformative power of love in the African American culture that was written in a clear simple way that didn’t skip the complexity of our culture.
Bell Hooks was a feminist, a scholar, and a writer. I was a married woman in my 30s, a new mom who (unbeknownst to me at the time) was dyslexic. Reading her books spoke to me in a culturally inclusive way, in a way that I hadn’t found before then that made me feel seen and intelligent all at the same time. Once I finished devouring this book I was hooked (no pun intended) I had to have more.
Next it was Communion: The Female Search for Love, then Sisters of the Yam, Killing Rage, and I could go on. She helped to not just shaping my thinking that formed the basis of my work today but she informed my curiosity and confidence in my own ability to think. I love her for that!
Bell Hooks transitioned today to join others in the land of the ancestors. I have a candle burning for her, for me, for the legacy of thought and love that she has left behind.
Thank you for being my teacher. Thank you for loving me even though we never met in person. Thank you for helping me to know that I too could look at things in a critical way and see things that others hadn’t. Thank you for playing your part in healing the heart of the little Black girl in me that thought that I wasn’t enough.
May you be carried safely to the land of the ancestors. You can rest now.
Quanita
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