Dolly Parton Was Someone We Could All Agree On

By Alex Buscemi, Editorial Manager at Builders

Dolly Parton passed away Tuesday at the age of 80, and in a country that often seems like it can't agree(opens in new tab) on anything, somehow we all agreed on Dolly.

She was a devout Christian(opens in new tab) who became a gay-rights icon. A rhinestone glamour queen who wrote the plainest, truest songs ever recorded about growing up dirt poor. Beloved in red-state hollers and blue-state cities, at Pentecostal churches and Pride parades alike. Try to name another public figure who managed all of that at once. The list is short, and this week it got shorter.

She pulled it off without ever pretending to be someone she wasn't, and without picking a team. When the whole world was daring people to declare which side they were on, Dolly kept declining the invitation and kept right on loving whoever showed up. She held her faith openly, loved people who lived nothing like her openly, and somehow refused to let the culture sort her into a camp.

She also put her money where her enormous heart was. Her Imagination Library has mailed hundreds of millions of free books to children, with no questions asked about how their parents vote. Through her Dollywood Foundation, she funded scholarships for students in her home corner of East Tennessee, betting on kids other people overlooked. "Saint Dolly," her fans called her, and there wasn't a drop of hyperbole in that title.

She found the things everyone can agree are good: a child with a book, a student with a chance, a song that makes a hard day lighter, and went for it, for everybody, without checking anyone's yard sign first.

At Builders, we spend a lot of time asking whether it's possible to be decent to people we disagree with, whether we can build something together across the divides that keep splitting us apart. Dolly spent 80 years answering these questions. She was unmistakably herself, held nothing back, and still helped a fractured country come together.

That's about the finest thing a person can leave behind. Maybe the truest tribute is to try, in our own smaller ways, to be a little more like her. Quicker to love. Slower to sort people into enemies. Generous first, and hateful never.

Rest easy, Dolly. And thank you.

Alex Buscemi can be reached at abuscemi@buildersmovement.org(opens in new tab)