Kumbaya may be a beloved campfire song, but it was a black spiritual before it was co-opted

and became anti-black.

This is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in school.

Somebody need your love, Kumbaya, somebody die in love, Kumbaya.

Saying H. Wiley in a thick gulaccent, his song became a popular black spiritual, but most

of us know it as Kumbaya.

How did this powerful song become a mere campfire jingle?

Marvin Frey, a white composer, heard Wiley's song, Come By Here, which phonetically sounds

like Kumbaya, allowed, misinterpreting the lyrics as Kumbaya.

Frey later hijacked the song and claimed it as his own.

He even made up a fake origin story about a missionary overhearing the song and Angola.

This co-opting is deeper than simply stealing a song.

Our people wrote and sang Kumbaya with their own chest to call on God during the tormenting

days of Jim Crow, but it was turned into a breezy feel-good campfire sing-along song.

There's a long history of black music, language, fashion, and other parts of the culture

being stolen, co-opted, or miscredited.

But we're the blueprint, they could never do it like us.

Anti-blackness has stolen so much from us, but they can't Kumbaya the culture when we

know the truth about our history.

In order to move towards the future, you've got to look to the past.

This has been Two Minute Black History, a podcast by Push Black.

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