Dozens of municipalities and one state have declared September 25 as Dolly Parton Day, making California the first in the nation to write the honor into law through bipartisan legislation.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 931, a bill co-authored by Republican state Senator Shannon Grove of Bakersfield and Democrat John Laird of Santa Cruz, establishing September 25 as an annual Dolly Parton Day in California. The date is a nod to the late singer's signature hit "9 to 5." Newsom's office framed the law not as a political gesture but as a tribute to a woman whose philanthropy and character crossed every partisan line in American life.
Newsom did not hold back in his praise. ABC News reported his full statement:
"We could all afford to live a little more like Dolly. Be kind, be humble, and have some fun...Be a diamond in a rhinestone world. With this bill, we are not just establishing a day to celebrate Dolly Parton, we are creating an annual reminder to us, every year, to live the way she did, joyfully, graciously, and with a whole lot of heart."
That a Republican and a Democrat co-sponsored the bill in Sacramento, a legislature not known for bipartisan warmth, says something about what Parton meant to people who agree on almost nothing else. Grove represents deep-red Bakersfield; Laird represents liberal Santa Cruz. SB 931 passed and reached the governor's desk without the rancor that defines most California lawmaking.
Five Tennessee cities and towns, Nashville, Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and Pittman Center, each issued their own declarations marking September 25 as Dolly Parton Day. Tennessee already recognizes January 19, Parton's birthday, as an official state holiday in her name. But a proposal to add September 25 as a statewide "9 to 5 Day" remains stuck in the legislature, with no vote expected before January 2027.
That means California, not Parton's home state, holds the distinction of being the first to codify the September date into law. For a woman whose final days drew an outpouring of national grief, the legislative delay in Nashville is a curious footnote.
Nashville itself, however, did not wait on state lawmakers. The city planned to honor Parton with pink lights and Dolly posters displayed across town on September 25. Country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood announced that their Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk in Nashville would donate all proceeds from the day to the Nashville Public Library and Parton's Imagination Library.
That donation carries weight. Parton launched the Imagination Library in 1995, and the program has distributed more than 330 million free books to children worldwide. Nearly every Dolly Parton Day declaration across the country cited the literacy program as a central reason for the honor.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal declared September 25 as Dolly Parton Appreciation Day across the borough in early September. Portland, Oregon, and two Texas counties, Hays County and Montgomery County, also issued proclamations recognizing the day.
San Francisco held a daytime celebration in Union Square featuring live music. In New Orleans, the Krewe of Dolly, a local marching group devoted to Parton's memory, led a parade through the French Quarter, ending at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
The breadth of the celebrations is striking. Red counties in Texas, blue strongholds in New York and Oregon, and everything in between found common ground on a single point: Dolly Parton earned this. The Nashville airport board's unanimous vote to begin renaming the facility after Parton reflected the same bipartisan instinct, an honor nobody objected to because the record behind it was beyond dispute.
What made Parton a unifying figure was not just her music. It was the fact that her biggest contributions, hundreds of millions of free books for children, disaster relief for her Appalachian neighbors, quiet donations that rarely made headlines, came from private initiative, not public programs. She did not wait for a federal grant or a bureaucratic commission. She built the Imagination Library herself, funded it, and expanded it worldwide.
That model resonates with Americans who believe charity works best when it comes from the heart, not from a line item in a spending bill. Parton never lectured. She never ran for office. She never turned her platform into a soapbox for partisan causes. And yet here she is, honored by lawmakers from both parties in a country that cannot agree on much of anything.
Even as her estate faces legal disputes among family members, the public legacy remains untouched. Her estate has also announced plans for tribute festivals in Nashville and London set for 2027, ensuring the celebrations will only grow.
Parton's story is the kind Washington rarely produces: a private citizen who gave more to her country through personal generosity than most elected officials manage in a lifetime of spending other people's money. That dozens of governments now set aside a day in her name is less a gift to Dolly Parton than an admission of what real public service looks like.
