Killing Rage: Ending Racism

hooks writes about historical events that she lived through, from her birth in 1952 until the publication of Killing Rage: Ending Racism in 1995. One of these events was desegregation, which began federally across the US in 1954 but took time to implement in Appalachia, where hooks was born and raised. When hooks began her education, it was in a segregated, all-Black school. hooks was witness to the political turmoil surrounding the desegregation of public schools in Kentucky. This era includes the famous events in the cities of Sturgis and Clay, where the National Guard and police had to enforce the desegregation of schools in 1956. hooks frequently describes the change from being in all-Black communities to being in racially integrated communities. For instance, hooks writes: “Once black folks became able to establish bonds of attachment and intimacy to white folks, the structures of black intimacy were altered” (242). Black identity and relationships changed, hooks argues, when Black people began to enter formerly only white spaces.

Black identity was fundamentally changed by the civil rights movement and the Black power movement, which began in the 1960s. This included actions by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. hooks frequently cites Martin Luther King Jr., who was a leader in the SCLC, as well as Malcolm X, who was a leader in the Nation of Islam. The latter advocated for more militant revolutionary thought and actions than the former. The Black power movement, meanwhile, was just as known for actions that build and sustain communities—like the installation of street lights where Black children were killed in Oakland—as they were for violence, which they defended whenever it was in self-defense. The Black power movement also challenged white supremacy by emphasizing ideas like loving natural Black hair texture and darker skin tones.

In the book, hooks also refers to the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. These hearings occurred when Thomas was nominated for US Supreme Court justice. Anita Hill testified that Thomas sexually harassed her. Joe Biden, who became president in 2021, chaired the committee that oversaw the hearings and appointed Thomas, who has continued to serve into the new millennium. hooks also refers to the war on poverty, specifically the report prepared by Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Moynihan on Black poverty in 1965. This report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” was controversial and used by conservatives to perpetuate racism.