BEREA, Ky. (LEX 18) — Berea College's bell hooks center is hosting its inaugural bell hooks symposium to honor the life and legacy of the feminist author. Event organizer, founder and director of the bell hooks center, Dr. M. Shadee Malaklou, describes hooks as a priestess of love.
She says, "Never forget that she was fierce and unapologetic, audacious, right? And people didn't like her because of that...but she was steadfast. She didn't let that affect her. She was committed — and she was like that in her personal relationships too."
Malaklou says people have come from around the globe for this three-day event. The event was funded through a grant from the Melon Foundation and will include guest speakers, panels, workshops, and more. Organizers hope that a variety of lessons are learned.
"What I want people to walk away from is that we cannot sanitize what she stood for in order to keep her legacy alive. Doing so would butcher her and that's not fair, right? And so, I think that what I want people to realize is that we need to keep bell, not just in our minds but in our hearts,” says Malaklou.
Before her death in 2021, these educators say that hooks had discontent for the lack of feminism in today's society. This event hopes to keep her work and messages on feminism alive.
Malaklou shares, "How appropriate is it for us to sow feminist seeds that she said would nurture future harvest? And I want people to stop thinking feminism is a bad word, right? And if you're really doing feminism, it has to be as bell said anti-racist, it has to attend to social justice, it has to attend to disability, it has to attend to a wide variety of things that we often think are disparate."
As a Kentucky native, hooks came back to Berea in 2004 — saying that everything she loved was here. This symposium's organizers want people to walk away with a deeper love of themselves and of each other.
Malaklou explains, "The reason bell's feminism was so capacious is because she held us in love. Even in her home where she gossiped and spilled our tea, she held us with love. She told us to love ourselves and to love each other and to love the earth that sustains us because that will be the only way we save the possibility of freedom."
This center is looking to keep hooks’s legacy alive.
