Decolonizing the Music Room

RECLAIMING KUMBAYA!

“Kumbaya” is a song from the #GullahGeechee culture? Pamela Bailey examines the history of the African American spiritual in a fascinating blog post for Decolonizing the Music Room.

Pamela Bailey is a nationally published author, a singer-songwriter, and a self-described “Carolina Daughter.” She is descended from enslaved people from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. She is the Project Director for a multi-faceted documentary project about local and inter-state migration of American-born enslaved people from the Pee Dee region which has been supported by SC Humanities with a Major Grant.

For most of the audience, the song stirs sweet and deeply abiding images. They recount childhood stories of carefree summers at camp where they sang Kumbayain the spirit of camaraderie by the glow of a campfire, under the watchful gazes of troop leaders and youth ministers.

Some, like me, are descended from people enslaved in the US, and Kumbaya is permanently fixed in our memories. Passed down from generation to generation, the call-and-response song has been a staple in black churches, both physical sanctuaries and the invisible ones created by enslaved people in obscured wooded locations, to practice their faith with autonomy.

I inevitably ask my next question, “Do you know the meaning of Kumbaya?”

Learn more about it here.