Dolly Parton Didn’t Just Say Black Lives Mattered. She Showed It.

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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August 27, 2026

Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black

Credit: Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Dolly Parton became a country legend, Hollywood star and business mogul. But her compassion for poor families, embrace of Black artists and willingness to confront racism created an unlikely bond that stretched far beyond country music.

Yet despite achieving global superstardom, accumulating a vast fortune and reaching larger-than-life status in an industry that struggles with diversity, Dolly Parton was embraced by the Black community. When her family announced her death at age 80 on Tuesday, a wide range of Black icons — including the nation’s first Black president — noted her passing.

While many Black admirers praised Parton’s artistry and hailed her improbable rise to stardom, others noted she was a white person who “got it”— someone who not only saw and understood Black America but also empathized with the people and tried to help. They described her as a quiet but consistent social-justice advocate whose consciousness likely was shaped by her humble beginnings.

Read more about Dolly Parton an ally to our Community!

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