For CU Boulder scholar Shawn Trenell O’Neal, the outpouring of grief over Dolly Parton’s death in Black communities bespeaks the legend’s humanity and allyship

Shawn Trenell O’Neal was taking an afternoon walk Tuesday when Joanne Corson, program manager for the University of Colorado Boulder Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) and his dear friend, texted him, asking him to call her right away.

He did, and the first thing she said was, “We just lost Dolly.”

There was no question of which Dolly. Is there any other? “So, we spent the next half an hour talking about Dolly, and right after that I called my mother,” he recalls.

Shawn O'Neal is a CU Boulder assistant teaching professor of ethnic studies and the Center for African and African American Studies associate faculty director.

“My mother and the Black women in my family who raised me were big fans of Dolly Parton, and not necessarily her music, which makes it even more compelling. They were fans of who she was.”

Since she died Tuesday at age 80, people worldwide have united in grief and celebration of a singular songwriter, musician, philanthropist, actress and all-around icon and legend, frequently citing a 2019 New York Times headline: “Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton.”

It should be no surprise, says O’Neal, an assistant teaching professor of ethnic studies, musicologist and CAAAS associate faculty director, that Black communities are mourning Parton just as deeply as fan bases, including country music fan bases, that traditionally have veered white.

O’Neal points to a 2020 interview Parton had with Billboard magazine, not long after George Floyd’s death and as the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum. “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” Parton told the magazine. “And of course Black lives matter! Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

“At that point we are screaming their names into the air, we don't know what else to do anymore, we are desperate,” O’Neal says. “And to have someone like that step up in that moment, someone who didn’t politicize things, who kept out of politics, but she came out at that moment and said something when we needed it the most?

“She didn't have to do anything and we still would have loved her, but no, she stepped up at that moment and did that, and it just reminded me again, oh, this is why the women in my family made me understand that I have to love this woman.”

Question: Since they weren’t really listening to Dolly’s music, what was it about her that the women in your family loved?

O’Neal: I think it started with her contradictions. She’s got the hair and the nails, the five-inch heels, sequins and rhinestones, you know? But then she comes in with this incredible mind, this talent. And Black people have to live with contradictions all the time, so I think a lot of Black American women were seeing her, like, ‘Oh, you tricky. I see how you playing these dudes, with the heels and the dress and the hair and everything else, and you just playing these dudes like a French horn.’ For the women in my family, Dolly Parton was someone who put a smile on their face.

Question: Do you remember when you first became aware of Dolly?

O’Neal: Around the time 9 to 5 came out, which was in 1980. We didn’t go see it in the theater, but we had cable television and (the women in my family) were so excited to watch this movie. So, I sat there and watched this movie with them, and they just loved it.

I realize now there’s layers to this. The first thing I realize is that we have to put it in a historical context. The movie 9 to 5 is all about women in the workforce and taking a stand to discrimination and taking a stand to misogyny, and all the women in my family worked. My grandmother and my great aunt, they were nurses and nurses’ aides at the VA hospital at Great Lakes Naval Base, my mother was a lab technician and my great-grandmother cleaned houses for rich people in Lake Forest, Illinois, and Highland Park, Illinois.

And this was during the Reagan years, where Ronald Reagan was destroying Black families, just eating us up alive, and at the same time Black women were really trying to insert themselves into the workplace. For the women in my family, at least, I think that movie empowered them, seeing Dolly have to put up with some of the things they were having to put up with. And the song ‘9 to 5’! I mean, that song is submerged in gospel. That line where she’s like, ‘It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it,’ is that not right out of church?

 

"This lady actually loves people and she’s actually sticking her neck out for women, for people regardless of their race and ethnicity," says CU Boulder scholar Shawn Trenell O'Neal.

Question: So, you came to Dolly’s music on your own?

O’Neal: Yes, we watched the movie and I was like, ‘OK, who is this Dolly Parton?’ I gotta now figure out who this Dolly Parton was, so I started listening to some of her music. I remember hearing ‘Jolene’ and, oh, wow. And it was interesting, too, because a lot of Black R&B songs at that time, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, were about that subject matter—like, ‘I'll be damned if you come in here and mess with my family or my man, you got another think coming.’

Question: Speaking of ‘Jolene,’ you mentioned you played it during your African American History class Wednesday. Why was that?

O’Neal: For starters, because I'm the kind of person that likes to keep (my students) guessing. So, I put it on, I'm blasting it as I'm getting my notes and stuff out and together, and I know they're kind of looking around at each other like, ‘What's going on here?’ What I wanted to do is use it as an icebreaker, because I wanted to talk about the fact that I was raised by these amazing Black women who taught me to honor and love people based on their actions and not the color of their skin or whatever ethnicity that they were a part of.

We were going into a very, very difficult chapter about the triangular trade of the enslavement of African people, so I wanted that icebreaker of what Dolly represented.

Question: You mentioned that your great-grandmother would have called Dolly ‘a good Christian.’ Why is that?

O’Neal: She lived it. My great-grandmother would have said Dolly was a real Christian; like, this lady actually loves people and she’s actually sticking her neck out for women, for people regardless of their race and ethnicity. She was there for people, for humanity, so the women in my family saw her as a true humanitarian.

So, you know, Dolly let Whitney Houston sing (‘I Will Always Love You’) and she made over $10 million in royalties from Whitney’s version, but you know what? She never even collected that money. You know what she did with that money? She put it back into a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville. She was like, ‘This Black woman, Whitney Houston, took my song and sang it into the stratosphere, and that’s who deserves this money, is these communities.’ I mean, who does that? Only Dolly! She built an amusement park so people in the community where she grew up could have jobs. She sent something like 300 million books to kids. 

Question: What are you remembering most about Dolly this week?

O’Neal: I think about, you know, I was a young Black man growing up in the Chicago area, and I adored her. I adored her ability to be brash, her ability to be a shrewd businesswoman. Here she was building an empire, but at the same time, going back to that idea of contradictions, being in some ways understated about it. 

I think as Black folks we could see ourselves in her. We had to look sharp because we didn't have a lot else to go on. We had to roll in the Cadillac or the Lincoln because we didn't have a lot else to make us feel proud, but that didn’t really get to what was happening beneath the surface. And I know that for Black women, that level of beauty that she exuded, getting the hair done, getting the nails, all of it, they respected that. But they saw she was so much more. There were all these other things going on that were unsaid, but people knew about her, and the women in my family knew. And they were just, like … you weren't about to mush-mouth no Dolly Parton up in my house. You just weren't.

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