Author bell hooks, who was known for her influential writings on race, gender, feminism, and capitalism, died Wednesday at 69, her family said. hooks, who was born Gloria Jean Watkins, was famous for her debut book Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism, which examined the role of Black women through history and argued that the feminist movement did little to address the concerns of Black or poor women, subjecting them to further systematic oppression. She continued her career with more than 40 books and essays while also taking a teaching job at Kentucky’s Berea College. There, she helped launch the bell hooks Institute, which houses multiple personal artifacts and book copies from her collection. “Berea College is deeply saddened about the death of bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, prodigious author, public intellectual, and one of the country’s foremost feminist scholars,” the college told the Lexington Herald-Leader. Her publicist said hooks was sick, but she was surrounded by loved ones.