ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Since Dolly Parton's death yesterday, tributes have been pouring in from every corner of the country and much of the world. Many posted to social media, many especially touching ones by Black Americans, like this one on Instagram from actress Erika Patrice Kellom, acting out a little scene, placing a phone call to heaven.
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ERIKA PATRICE KELLOM: Hey, Dolly. How are you? Oh, sugar. I can't believe you left us down here like that.
FLORIDO: Many Black Americans feel a special kinship with Dolly Parton, who, though a white country singer from Appalachia, seemed to transcend racial and political divides and often supported Black civil rights struggles. To talk about this, we are joined by Nehemiah Frank. He publishes an online newspaper, The Black Wall Street Times, and he wrote about this. Welcome.
NEHEMIAH FRANK: Hello. Thanks for having me, Adrian.
FLORIDO: You wrote that Dolly Parton was not a civil rights leader or political activist but her legacy reached into Black America. What was it about Dolly Parton that specifically, you know, endeared her to Black America, you think?
FRANK: There's this phrase in the Black community that we often use about people coming to the cookout. And Dolly Parton was always welcome to the cookout. And the reason why was because she was just so authentic and unapologetically herself. She was such a genuine person, and vulnerable, you know, at times when she didn't have to be because of her privilege.
FLORIDO: I want to play a clip for you of Dolly Parton back in 2020. She was asked in an interview with Billboard Magazine about the Black Lives Matter movement.
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DOLLY PARTON: And, of course, Black lives matter. Do we think our little white a***s are the only ones that matter? No.
FLORIDO: This was a time when racial justice activism was at a peak and backlash to it was also growing. A lot of white conservatives refused to say that Black lives matter. Why did hearing Dolly Parton say something like that feel like such a big deal?
FRANK: You know, it was significant because Dolly had spent decades carefully avoiding, you know, partisan politics, for one. But when she finally spoke, she didn't hedge on whether Black lives matter. She made the moral question sound as obvious as it should have been. And I thought it hit. You know, it sounds a little funny when she says it, but to Black America, when we see that is, you know, she's not centering herself or just white people. She's saying, hey, Black people are human. And I think that vulnerability, with her stature in American pop culture - like, she really put herself on the line there, and she didn't care. So, you know, Black Americans saw her as an ally the moment she got real.
FLORIDO: Let's talk about her support for Black artists. She was famously in love with Whitney Houston's cover of her song, "I Will Always Love You," and invested the royalties that she earned into Black neighborhoods in Nashville. Was that seen as important?
FRANK: Absolutely. I mean, one, you know, we see Whitney as the voice in our community, and a lot of people, you know, in her community would see her as a voice. And so to be able to cross those different genres to where we both could understand it is, you know, it's powerful.
FLORIDO: And another artist she embraced more recently is Beyoncé. How big of a deal was Beyoncé's cover of "Jolene," one of Dolly Parton's most famous songs?
FRANK: I would say it was huge. It was a way for us to be able to go back and say, oh, wow, you know, Dolly created that song, and Beyoncé did a really great job covering it, just like Whitney did an incredible job covering "I Will Always Love You."
FLORIDO: What do you think the rest of America can learn from Dolly Parton and her relationship with Black America?
FRANK: The thing that we could learn from her is that, you know, it's not a hard thing to be able to reach across the aisle or to reach into people's lives. It doesn't take a lot, and, you know, she made it look easy. Of course, she does have a lot of resources but, you know, small acts of kindness can go a long way.
FLORIDO: Well, I've been speaking with Nehemiah Frank. He publishes The Black Wall Street Times. Thanks so much for joining us to talk about Dolly Parton.
FRANK: Thank you, Adrian.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOLLY PARTON SONG, "JOLENE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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