IMO I think a great way to process this grief is to look up every state representative that is looking to defund Dolly’s Imagination Library program and start calling up their phones!
Appalachia is such a beautiful and special place and you can’t understand that unless you’re from there or have ties there. No one loved or believed in Tennessee like Dolly and that she wore that with such pride was something special.
Fun fact: Dolly Parton used the royalties from Whitney Houston’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You” to support a Black neighborhood, and support Black owned businesses.
"I bought my big office complex down in Nashville. So I thought, 'Well, this is a wonderful place to be,'" Parton said. "I bought a property down in what was the Black area of town, and it was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there. It was off the beaten path from 16th Avenue and I thought, 'Well, I am gonna buy this place — the whole strip mall.' And I thought, 'This is the perfect place for me to be,' considering it was Whitney. I thought this was great — I'm just gonna be down here with her people, who are my people as well," she continued. "So I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, 'This is the house that Whitney built.' "
And when the MAGA conservatives swoop in and try to claim Dolly as one of their own, it’s imperative that you do not let them.
Dolly Parton loved everyone. Immigrants, trans people, queer people, disabled people, poor people - Dolly loved them all unconditionally.
my deep sorrow aside, dolly parton cared dearly for children and literacy in the appalachian mountains, which still lack many of the social programs and government funding afforded to the rest of america. she wanted everyone to have a fair chance no matter where they came from.