Born Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952, bell hooksgrew up in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She described her town as a "world where folks were content to get by on a little, where Baba, mama's mother, made soap, dug fishing worms, set traps for rabbits, made butter and wine, sewed quilts, and wrung the necks of chickens." Her father was a janitor for the local post office and her mother was a homemaker.