With the death of bell hooks, a generation of feminists lost a foundational figure

Author and cultural critic bell hooks poses for a portrait on December 16, 1996 in New York City, New York.

A groundbreaking feminist thinker, writer and activist, bell hooks was clearly uninterested in being safe, respectable or acceptable, and charted a career on her own terms.

(Image credit: Karjean Levine/Getty Images)

A groundbreaking feminist thinker, writer and activist, bell hooks was clearly uninterested in being safe, respectable or acceptable, and charted a career on her own terms.