The city of Hopkinsville and the bell hooks Legacy Group will host a dedication ceremony for bell hooks Way — formerly Eighth Street between South Virginia and Clay streets — at 1:30 p.m. Friday, March 1. The public is invited to gather at Eighth and Liberty streets for the unveiling of a new street sign and acknowledgments of bell hooks’ legacy in Hopkinsville and beyond.
Following the street dedication, attendees are invited to the Pennyroyal Area Museum, 217 E. Ninth St., for the opening of the newly created bell hooks Legacy Room.
Together, these two events will mark bell hooks Legacy Day to honor the memory of a great American writer, educator and cultural critic who hailed from Hopkinsville. Born as Gloria Jean Watkins on Sept. 25, 1952, she adopted the pen name bell hooks from her great-grandmother and earned international acclaim for her writings on feminism, race and class. She died on Dec. 15, 2021, at Berea.
Hopkinsville City Council agreed to rename the street for bell hooks at the request of her sister, Gwenda Motley, and other advocates who seek to illuminate the writer’s impact in her hometown.
“The family is very excited to have a street named on her behalf,” said Motley.
The selection of Eighth Street is significant because it is adjacent to the Carnegie Library, which was the main public library in Hopkinsville when Gloria Watkins was a child. There she gained access to hundreds of books that helped cultivate her intellectual development. The street also runs beside a bell hooks mural that was dedicated on Aug. 27, 2022.
Hoptown Chronicle editor Jennifer P. Brown is a member of the bell hooks Legacy Group, a grassroots alliance that nurtures the meaning and impact of the writer’s stories, essays and poems in her hometown.
