America's Godmother Has Passed // How We Can Honor Dolly Parton with Mutual Aid

There was nobody quite like Dolly. HOUDINI's editor-in-chief gives us a truly heartwarming tribute and call-to-action in her honor.

Dolly Parton was, and it doesn't feel good to use that word there, was, for all intents and purposes, America's godmother. I think that's why this celebrity death feels different. It's why a lot of people are feeling real feelings of grief, because her death really does feel like losing your godmother. And to a lot of children, that was effectively the role she played through her organizations. Millions of children across this country were given the gift of reading and books through her program, the Imagination Library.

There is so much that could be said about this woman. One thing I think about is if you walk into a Dollar General, you can find Dolly Parton merch. In fact, I almost impulse bought a pink camo hat that said "Dolly" on it. I mean, it's cute. It's quirky. And it's at the Dollar General for, I think, twelve dollars. It's affordable. And where is it that most rural, poor Americans have access to shop at? The Dollar General. And yes, there's money to be made in having your merch in that location, but how many other brands or celebrities are going to put their name into a store like that? How many people feel shame for shopping there? But how can you feel that shame when you know Dolly's there. Her merch is there because that's where she's from: deep poverty, Appalachian Tennessee. And she never forgot that. Throughout all of her life, the goal was to take the money that she had made from her royalties, her music, her songwriting, and her other ventures, and give it back to the world.

Think, too, of how she wielded her influence beyond books. She was an LGBT icon. You couldn't be queer in the South and not be intimately familiar with Dolly Parton. Dolly offered an exit ramp from the propaganda of hate, a gentle and undeniable invitation to compassion. The hatred has a harder time claiming the mind space of those who have heard her preach love. She embodied "Love thy Neighbor" Christianity, not the "Dominate thy Neighbor" megachurch-branded Christianity that so often gets preached here in America, especially in the South.

And of course Dollywood, to speak of just one of her ventures. She brought development to Appalachia. Born in a shack, a peasant by any measure, she used her prodigious gifts to uplift the material conditions of her people. In the land where the mining companies could only extract, Dolly developed. Some might say she bought back the hood, she developed the productive forces of her region with a music empire, and gave back at every single step. She donated $1 million to fund the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. She gave millions of children the gift of reading.

If I were president right now, I would pass an executive order today mandating that every newborn in this country receive her program's books, 18 months of baby supplies followed by four years of carefully selected children's books, two per month, for every family, every child. That is the type of America that Dolly represented, and that is the type of America we struggle toward.

This is a one-of-a-kind woman who, in many ways, represents the ideal version and vision of what American culture can produce in a world that has been so saturated in greed for greed's sake and hate for hate's sake. Dolly represented an America that's explicitly opposite of our current culture of "Fuck you, got mine." That's why her death feels different, no doubt a flame of good has gone out in an increasingly darker world. The passing of Dolly Parton hurts because there are seldom people like her in this world, and many are saying that there may never be another like her.

But there are – all across this nation, hundreds of thousands of people who are moving in spirit as she was. Many thousands who embody the America Dolly did. These are people who are tending to the little libraries in their communities, making sure that books are plentiful and available. These are people handing out clothes and socks and collecting donations. These are people committed to mutual aid, whether that's food shares or school supplies, or just building real person-to-person community.

And so I think if we want to honor Dolly Parton, then we should commit ourselves to engaging in these small acts of mutual aid. Find a little library in your neighborhood. Go get a couple of kids' books, put them inside. Find a group that's doing meal shares. See if you can lend a hand. Find a group that's collecting socks and handing them out to the people who need them. Go out into your community and give back in the same way that Dolly spent her life giving back. This is how we can honor our dead.

Dolly Parton was America's godmother. Her values are the values that we seek to instill as we work towards building a new America that is free from greed, from hatred, from bigotry, from exploitation and poverty. Rest in power, Dolly Parton.