Thora Dudley’s Roots

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Thora Dudley knew “Come by Here” in 1956.  Where she learned it is unknown.  While her classmates who attended a meeting in Davidson, North Carolina, recognized it, the fact they directed Larry Eisenberg to her suggests they had learned it from her. [1]

As noted in the post for 23 October 22, Dudley had spent much of her life in Talladega, Alabama, where she attended the school for the blind, before enrolling in the college.  If she didn’t learn “Come by Here” there, then she may have learned it from her mother or other members of her family.

All we know about her early years are that she was born in Ainsley and her father is buried in Rutledge. [2]  Both settlements are in the wiregrass region of Alabama that stretches along the coastal plain from Macon Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama. [3]  The light, sandy soils were covered by longleaf pines with an understory of the eponymous grass when settlers first entered the area. [4]

In Pike County, where Ainsley is located, white families moved to the area in the 1830s from Georgia, the Carolinas, and northeastern Alabama. [5]  They soon discovered the soil did not support long-term production of cotton. [6]  Many moved on, while others moved in during the 1850s.  Before the Civil War, cotton was the cash crop grown by subsistence farmers who might own few slaves.  Only 32 men claimed they were overseers in the 1850 census. [7]

Fourteen of 2,520 farmers owned land worth more than $5,000 in 1859, [8] and just one could be called a large planter.  Solomon Siler held acreage in the southwestern part of the county around Henderson and Palmyra on a tributary of the Pea River that ultimately flowed into the Gulf of Mexico through Florida’s Choctawhatchee river. [9]  He built his mansion in Orion, the county’s antebellum cultural center.  When he died in 1854, he owned nearly 10% of the county’s slaves. [10]

The Civil War drew men to battle, but otherwise did not much affect Pike County. [11]  Little violence is recorded from Reconstruction, although a school was burned in neighboring Crenshaw County [12]  Hostility to education took a different form.  Baptists in Orion told a speaker in 1865 that, if he thought local women should teach freedmen, then use his own daughters. [13]  In 1874, the Democratic Party made it an official policy for citizens to shun anyone who cooperated with the Federal government or Republicans. [14]

Reconstruction eliminated farmers’ dependence on creeks as routes for marketing cotton.  The Mobile and Girard Railroad, which was built in 1870, crossed the county from northeast (Saco) to Goshen in the southwest. [15]  Planters learned they could keep the soil productive if they added fertilizer every year.  By 1914, Pike County ranked third in number of bales of cotton ginned in Alabama. [16]

Fertilizer was sold on credit by furnishing agents.  In 1877, Alabama passed a law that gave creditors more rights over crops than the growers.  Many small farmers, if they still had some resources, left the state. [17]  The remaining white farmers, along with the freedman who hadn’t left for Montgomery after emancipation, [18] were reduced to sharecropping. [19]

The county had had few places like Siler’s where a slave-controlled community could develop like those on rice plantations.  Most slaves worked for small farmers.  After the war, and especially after the consolidation of land holdings precipitated by the Crop Lien law, few would have had places they could call home.

Immediately after the war, white Baptists instructed freedmen in Troy, then told them to establish their own church in 1872. [20]  People came from as far as Crenshaw County to attend. [21]  A second Baptist church was organized in Troy in 1878. [22]  If congregations existed in outlaying areas, they were not visible to whites.  Two churches were burned in 1904 by White Cappers. [23]

Railroads introduced another change in the 1880s.  In 1886, the Montgomery and Florida Railroad built a line through Crenshaw County to reach timber [24] around places like Rutledge.  The Alabama Midland was chartered in 1887, [25] going from southeast through Bundridge and Troy to northwest Pike County.  Ainsley had a station in 1889. [26]

Ainsley seems to be on a watershed between two creeks that would have reverted to woodland, if the land had ever been cleared for farming.  The village soon had “a cotton gin, saw mill, planing mill, dry kiln, lathing mill and shingle mill.” [27]

Lumber jobs last as long as the trees, then companies move their equipment to new areas.  The boll weevil appeared in Pike County in 1918.  The decline was temporary.  By 1930, the county again was producing more cotton with more fertilizer. [28]  Then came the Depression.

What little is known about Dudley’s father comes from his gravestone in a Baptist cemetery in Rutland.  He died in 1934.  A woman, who may have been his wife, was born in 1904, and would have been thirty years old when she became a widow.  This implies he was a young man.

One interpretation is that his family was from Rutledge and he had been working in Ainsley in the middle-1920s when Thora was born.  The problem is the only tombstones with the Dudley name belong to Henry, Thora, and Willie.  If Rutledge were a family center, one would expect to see more.

A second possibility is that Henry was from Pike County and was a sharecropper who moved every few years in hopes of finding a better contract.  That might explain why Thora later claimed she was from Montgomery, rather than Ainsley.  It may have been the first place where she remained for more than a few seasons.

A third possibility is that Henry, or his father, moved to Pike County with the railroad or with a logging company.  The workers were probably a mix of skilled laborers brought by the companies and local sharecroppers who spent the winters in the woods.  Wikipedia says, in Crenshaw County, the “timber camps were rough work areas where racial tensions sometimes flared.” [29]

The movement of “Come by Here” into Pike or Crenshaw County may have been independent of the migrations of African Americans.  Lumber camps and railroads were not the only institutions that introduced new ideas into the area.  Margaret Farmer notes Troy, the administrative center of Pike County, had an opera house through at least 1912. [30]  Then tent shows brought in outside entertainers until at least 1924. [31]  The popular entertainment probably did not include religious music and Blacks would have had restricted access, but musical exchanges often occur outside scheduled events.

Revivals are a more likely possibility.  Pentecostalism arrived by 1921 when evangelists from the Alabama-Florida border held tent meetings.  No formal Assembly of God congregation developed until after Dudley died. [32]

Possibly more important were tent meetings held in 1923 and 1924 by William Tipton Grider. [33]  He was part of the Church of Christ, and from Covington County, south of Pike. [34]  The Church of Christ was descended from the Disciples of Christ, mentioned in the post for 8 November 2020, and still did not accept musical instruments in services. [35]

Neither denomination was particularly open to African Americans.  The Assembly was founded as a white alternative to the mixed-race meetings associated with early Pentecostalism. [36]  The Disciples kept Blacks in separate congregations, but did not expel them during Reconstruction as the Baptists had done. [37]  What is important is the two revivals indicate a steady movement of religious ideas, and possibly with it songs, along the old lines of river communication from Florida into Pike County.

A less likely source for “Come by Here” are the all-day sings held in the county before World War I.  The area around Good Hope, southeast of Ainsley, was one center.  William Marion Cooper, editor of The Sacred Harp, [38] often went there to lead sings.  William Brantley remembers “singing schools teachers, who traveled around the country like revival preachers, would come and give courses to all ages and classes from beginners to finished singers.” [39]  The result was a high level of musicianship in the county.  Brantley noted many did not have melodious voices, but had perfect pitch. [40]

Cooper was from Dothan, in Dale County, to the east.  A Black sacred harp tradition developed there and in the contiguous counties. [41]  African Americans probably were not allowed to join the singing in Pike County, but since some of the attendees were middle class, [42] they may have been present as cooks, servants, or men handling the horses.  All Dudley told her sorority sisters was she “had an ear for music and was able to hum tunes that she heard throughout the house.” [43]

Graphics
Base map:  DemocraticLuntz. “Location of Troy in Pike County, Alabama.”  Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 27 October 2017.

End Notes
1.  The meeting at Davidson College and Larry Eisenberg’s role in contacting Dudley are discussed in the post for 23 October 2022.

2.  Dudley’s life is described in the post for 23 October 2022.
3.  “Wiregrass (Region).”  Wikipedia website.

4.  Mark V. Wetherington.  “Wiregrass Georgia.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website, last updated 28 September 2020.  Wiregrass is Aristida stricta.

5.  Margaret Pace Farmer.  One Hundred Fifty Years in Pike County Alabama 1821 – 1971.  Anniston, Alabama: Higginbotham, Inc., 1973.  76-77.

6.  Donna J. Siebenthaler.  “Pike County.”  The Encyclopedia of Alabama website, 18 September 2007; last updated 7 December 2020.

7.  Farmer.  77.
8.  Farmer.  77.

9.  Silers Mill Creek flows into Whitewater Creek, which joins the Middle Pea in Coffee County. [44]  The Pea becomes part of the Choctawhatchee at Geneva, Alabama. [45]  That continues to Choctawhatchee Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. [46]

10.  Siler’s estate sold 97 slaves in 1854; the final settlement in 1862 listed 259. [47]  That implies he owned more than 300 when he died.  In 1850, the county had 3,818 slaves. [48]

11.  Farmer.  53.

12.  Walter L. Fleming.  Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905.  629.

13.  Jefferson Falkner.  Testimony, Montgomery, Alabama, 20 October 1871.  United States Congress.  Joint Select Committee.  The Condition of Affairs in Late Insurrectionary States.  Alabama.  Volume II.  Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872.  1123.  Fleming reports Jefferson Falkner heard the challenge at a Baptist Association meeting. [49]

14.  Fleming.  781.
15.  Farmer.  67.

16.  Farmer.  81.  Dallas County, with Selma, was first, and Montgomery County directly north of Pike was second.

17.  Farmer.  79.

18.  One assumes the more enterprising, ambitious, or discontented African Americans left the area as soon as they  could.  This exodus is not mentioned by historians.  Farmer notes the percentage of Blacks to whites in Pike County increased from 24% in 1850 to 27% in 1870, with 807 more freedmen, and 5,321 more whites.  The increase may only mean more whites left than Blacks.  Numbers are hard to compare because parts of Pike County were removed to create new, predominantly white counties, like Crenshaw, during Reconstruction. [50]  The subsequent reductions in the tax base to support the government was another reason whites moved elsewhere. [51]

19.  Farmer.  79.

20.  Farmer.  298.  The Black church was the First Missionary Baptist Church in Troy.  The parent white church was the First Baptist Church in Troy.

21.  Farmer.  299.
22.  Farmer.  301.  The church was Bethel Baptist Church in Troy.
23.  Farmer.  235.
24.  “Crenshaw County, Alabama.”  Wikipedia website.
25.  Farmer.  70.
26.  Farmer.  402.
27.  Farmer.  402.
28.  Farmer.  83.
29.  Wikipedia, Crenshaw.
30.  Farmer.  188-189.
31.  Farmer.  189-190.

32.  Farmer.  296-297.  S. W. Notes was from Solcomb in Geneva, County, Alabama, and C. L. Duck was from DeFuniack Springs in neighboring Walton County, Florida.

33.  Farmer.  293-294.

34.  Hugh Fulford.  “William T. ‘Tip’ Grider.”  The Restoration Movement website.  Covington County abuts Geneva County on the east and Walton County on the south.

35.  Sydney E. Ahlstrom.  A Religious History of the American People.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.  822-823.

36.  Vinson Synan.  The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition.  154-155.  This is mentioned in the post for 7 December 2017.

37.  Bobby Ross Jr. and Hamil R. Harris.  “Fifty Years after Historic Meeting, Race Still Divides Churches of Christ.”  The Christian Chronicle website.  2018.

38.  W. M. Cooper.  The B. F. White Sacred Harp: Revised and Improved.  Dothan, Alabama: 1902.

39.  William H. Brantley, Jr.  Letter to Margaret Pace Farmer, 13 August 1962.  Quoted by Farmer.  194.

40.  Brantley.  Quoted by Farmer.  195.

41.  H. J. Jackson.  “History of the Colored Sacred Harp.”  In  J. Jackson.  The Colored Sacred Harp.  Ozark, Alabama: 1934; reprinted by Paragon Press of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1973.  Judge Jackson, the founder of the Black sacred harp tradition in Alabama, was born eight miles west of Orion, and went to school in Ainsley.  When he was an adolescent, he left for Ozark, near Dothan, where he discovered the fasola singing tradition.  Men who helped put together his first edition were from Dothan’s Dale County, and the neighboring Houston, Henry, and Coffee Counties.

42.  Ora Lee Park, a descendant of Siler’s wife family, played piano for the sings. [52] The first Baptist church established in Troy, the Beulah Primitive Baptist, held all day sings with dinners on the grounds.  Brantley remembered the church overflowed, and people took turns going inside.  Theologically, he described it as the “Hard-Shell Baptist Church.” [53]

43.  “Our Charter Members.”  Alpha Kappa Alpha, Eta Omega Omega chapter website.

44.  “Choctawhatchee, Pea, and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Plan.”  Alabama Department of Environmental Management website.  65, 71-72.

45.  “Pea River.”  Wikipedia website.
46.  “Choctawhatchee River.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  Farmer.  358.
48.  Farmer.  78.
49.  Fleming.  625.
50.  Farmer.  78.
51.  Farmer.  56, 58.
52.  Farmer.  433.
53.  Brantley.  Quoted by Farmer.  195.

Thora Dudley - Come By Here

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Students at a Davidson College meeting in 1956 [1] claimed the song that was introduced as “Kumbaya” was really “Come by Here.”  As detailed in the post for 16 October 2022, Pete Seeger was there and incorporated their response into his introduction when he began singing a variant of the version published by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS).

Another man who was present, Larry Eisenberg, talked to the students.  By January of 1957, he had “found the name of this blind Negro gal who knew other verses for Come By Here (Kum Ba Yah).”  He must have contacted Thora Dudley, because he enclosed the lyrics in his letter to Lynn Rohrbough, owner of CRS.

The verses, which Dudley provided, deal with the consequences of death.  The order of the stanzas is not chronological – logically sorrow would come after dying – and may not matter.  Eisenberg indicated “she had these extra verses, and apparently knew others.”

She shifts pronouns from “somebody” who is dying to “we” who are in sorrow.  The words “down here” may represent a traditional Christian view that the dead rise to heaven, or may be an idiomatic term for they way individuals addressed the Holy Spirit.

It would be interesting to know why Eisenberg bothered to contact Dudley, but a seance is not possible.  He had edited books for The Methodist Church and written some himself.  In the process, he would have become aware of the legal responsibilities placed on writers by the copyright law. [2]

When he heard that “Kumbaya” was not a traditional African song as he supposed, he may have contacted Dudley to get information to pass on to Rohrbough.  The latter heard from Eisenberg ten weeks after he received a letter from Claire Lovejoy Lennon that told him she had known the song in Georgia before World War I. [3]  Sometime in 1957, Rohrbough removed the reference to Angola from his next songsters.

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: needs you, down in sorrow, dying, mourning
Pronouns: somebody, we
Term for Deity: not known
Special Terms: down
Basic Form: open-ended
Verse Repetition Pattern: not known
Ending: not known
Unique Features: shift in pronoun

Notes on Audience
Eisenberg wrote Rohrbough that “the other Talladega kids at Davidson, N. C. were familiar with the song.”

Notes on Performers
Thora Louise Dudley was born in Ansley, Alabama, in 1927 [4] and is buried in Rutledge, Alabama. [5]  Her life in between is recorded in events, divorced from dates, that may be connected by two different narrative lines.

In her public biography, Dudley told her class mates at Talladega College she was a “native of Montgomery.” [6]  Her sorority sisters in the Bronx believed she was born in Montgomery to “Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dudley” in 1937.  She became blind as a child, and her “parents enrolled her in The Alabama School for the Blind and Westside Senior High.”  She pledge Alpha Kappa Alpha in her sophomore year, [7] and graduated from Talladega College in 1958 [8] with a degree in Early Childhood Education. [9]

After graduation, she moved to New York where she earned a masters in rehabilitation counseling from Hunter College, and began teaching for the New York Association for the Blind. [10]

While she was at Talladega, Dudley was active in the YWCA and sang in the college choir. [11]  In New York, she played Pamina in some production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. [12]  In 1970, she won a contest at the Apollo Theater. [13]  She also had played organ as a child. [14]

This is the life of a woman who became part of the Black middle class.  Indeed, her photograph appeared in issues of Jet [15] and the NAACP’s Crisis [16] in connection with her fund-raising activities.  The second biographical line shows just how remarkable was her rise.

Ainsley was a small settlement in Pike County in southeastern Alabama about 40 miles southeast of Montgomery. [17]  Claiming she was from Montgomery may not have been an attempt to hide her rural roots from her more sophisticated colleagues.  Anyone who has lived in a small town quickly learns to tell others the name of the nearest place that is familiar to the person asking where one is from.  Otherwise, one has to answer the next question, “where is that?”

Rutledge, Alabama, is about twenty miles southwest of Ainsley in the next county.  The Roxanna Baptist Church Cemetery has a gravestone for Henry Dudley that says he died in 1934 during the depression. [18]  If Thora was born in 1927, she was about seven-years-old.  If she was born in 1937, then this is not her father.  The only other Dudley buried in that cemetery is Willie C. Dodley. [19]  Find a Grave has no information on any of them; Thora’s tombstone has no birth date.

If this Henry was her father, Thora’s mother may have moved to Montgomery where it would have been easier for her to find work.  Dudley, then, would have been justified in telling people she was from the city.

Alabama created a registry of blind students in 1927, and, in 1937, passed laws requiring every one between the ages of seven and sixteen to be in school.  Alabama School for Negro Deaf and Blind was in Talladega, and concentrated on vocational education.  It was partly funded by sales of goods produced by students. [20]  While it was a boarding school, her mother may have moved there when Thora enrolled.

The 1927 birth date seems the most likely.  She told Talladega she retired in 1992, [21] and would have been 65 years old.  The question is what she did after she left the school for the blind until she entered Talladega at age 27.  One thing we know she did was attend Westside High School in Talladega, where she would have received a traditional academic education.  From there she earned a state scholarship to Talladega, and received a little money from the Westside teachers. [22]

Her photo appears on the Pic_K tab.

Graphics
Larry Eisenberg, Brentwood, Tennessee.  Letter to Lynn, 29 January 1957.  Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene and World Around Songs.  Lynn is Lynn Rohrbough, owner of Cooperative Recreation Service.  CRS published “Kum Ba Yah” in 1955.

End Notes
1.  Larry Eisenberg described the meeting in a letter he wrote on 29 January 1957.  One assumes it may have taken Eisenberg a little time to locate Dudley.  He also may have delayed his search because he assumed a new church pulpit in September of 1956, and probably was occupied with moving his family and meeting his new parishioners. [23]  The logic of human activity suggests the event at Davidson College probably took place before the Christmas holidays in 1956.

2. Biographical details on Eisenberg appear in the posts for 9 February 2020 and 16 October 2022.  He is mentioned in the ones for 1 November 2020, 4 November 2020, 3 October 2021, and 13 March 2022.

3.  Lennon’s letter is quoted in the post for 18 October 2020.

4.  Cassandra Burford, Talladega College, Special Collections Librarian.  Email, 4 December 2018.

5.  “Thora L. Dudley.”  Find A Grave website, 22 April 2014.  She is buried in the Roxanna Baptist Church Cemetery.

6.  “Miss Thora Dudley, Rare Beauty, Courageous Spirit.”  Talladega Student, Talladega College, February 1955.  Copy courtesy of Perry H. Trice, Talladega College Savery Library.

7.  “Our Charter Members.”  Alpha Kappa Alpha, Eta Omega Omega chapter website.
8.  Burford.
9.  AKA.
10.  AKA.
11.  Talladega Student.
12.  AKA.
13.  “Thora Louise Dudley.”  Prabook website.
14.  AKA.
15.  “Final Meeting.”  Jet, 23 March 1961.  44.
16.  “Life Membership.”  The Crisis, February 1970.  69.
17.  Ainsley is discussed in the post 30 October 2022.
18.  “Henry Dudley.”  Find a Grave website, 22 April 2014.
19.  “Willie C Dudley.”  Find a Grave website, 22 April 2014.

20.  “Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.”  Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) website.  The segregated school was merged into the white one in 1968, [24] and its history nearly obliterated online.

21.  Burford.
22.  AKA.
23.  Larry Eisenberg.  “It’s Me, O Lord.”  Tulsa, Oklahoma: Fun Books, 1992.   63.

24.  “Alabama School for Negro Deaf-Mutes and Blind.”  American Printing House website.

 

Larry Eisenberg - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
In early 1957, Lynn Rohrbough was still in close touch with men who had supported his Cooperative Song Service (CRS) in the 1940s.  In January, Larry Eisenberg wrote him to say he was planning “to stay over after the ACA meeting, and will be happy to come out to the Rohrboughs on Saturday afternoon.” [1]

The two men met in 1936, when the twenty-year-old Eisenberg went to the National Conference of Methodist Youth in Berea, Kentucky. [2]  They became colleagues in the 1940s when Eisenberg was working for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville, Tennessee. [3]

Eisenberg left the department in 1952, and had been spending the interim years writing books on recreation that were published by the YMCA [4] and teaching social recreation to missionaries at Scarritt College. [5]  He had just begun working as a pastor in southwestern Virginia in late 1957. [6]

One event where he worked was an experiment in race relations sponsored by the Presbyterian and Congregational churches [7] at Davidson College in North Carolina.  Students from Black colleges, like Talladega, were given an opportunity to visit white schools where, it was hoped, the two groups would meet socially [8] and thus overcome some of the barriers in the South where only 15% of the whites believed in integrated schools. [9]

In addition to Eisenberg, Pete Seeger was invited to perform.  This event must have been reported in the local and school newspapers, but I have found nothing posted to the web.  This description is based on the memories of Eisenberg and Seeger.

One reason it would have been reported was its notoriety.  Davidson had become a textile mill town in 1890 [10] that attracted displaced white farmers. [11]  When the college finally agreed to enroll students from the Congo in 1962, five local business announced they would not serve them. [12]  Eisenberg had been told “the town even has vigilantes.”  He added, “so far as I know, nothing happened.” [13]

Seeger remembered that “a Methodist minister and recreation leader, Rev. Larry Eisenberg introduced the song in North Carolina.” [14]

Eisenberg probably learned “Kumbaya” from the Song Sampler, or some other CRS publication sent to him by Rohrbough. [15]  At that time, the heading still claimed it came from “Africa (Angola).”  He may have mentioned this in his introduction.  Seeger wrote that, “within a couple of years” of being published by CRS, “it was being sung in the USA as ‘an African song’.” [16]

Seeger recalled the Talladega students responded: “Why, we know this song! [. . .] It’s ‘Come by Here, Lord, Come by Here!’” [17]

The first question that arises is what would have prompted the visiting students to publically argue with Eisenberg.  They knew they were guests in a community that was hostile to the aspirations of African Americans.

One possibility is that they already were angry that white rock-a-billy performers, like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, [18] were making money by copying recordings made by Black artists.  They probably knew Presley had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on 26 October 1956 [19] singing “Hound Dog.” [20]  Some, at least, may have been known his recording was a cover of one released by an African-American blues singer, Big Mama Thornton, in 1953. [21]  This would have made them especially sensitive to hearing one of their religious songs being characterized by a white man as “African.”

Seeger altered the text slightly and began singing “Kumbaya” in his concerts. [22]  In October 1957, he told members of the University of Chicago’s Folklore Society:

“There was a missionary who came back from East Africa, Angola. [23]  And taught this song to us and a lot of people started singing it around the country.  Introducing it as an African spiritual.  Lo and behold someone was singing it down in North Carolina and people there said we know this song, it’s ‘Come by Here’.” [24]

In late December Seeger performed “Kumbaya” at a concert in Carnegie Hall.  When Folkways released a recording in early 1958, Seeger had added details in the liner notes that imagined the song in Africa:

“A missionary returned from Angola, East Africa several years ago with this song.  He had no translation for the title.  ‘It’s just a spiritual sung by people around the mission’.” [25]

Seeger, or his representative, had done the research needed to prevent a copyright dispute.  He noted:

“The song was published in one of the small camp songbooks put out by that remarkable man, Lynn Rohrbough, who in an Ohio barn prints millions of songbooks and recreation handbooks for churches, Y’s, and camps throughout the world.” [26]

Seeger was struck by there being two descriptions of the song’s origins and assumed both were true.  He then tried to explain how that could be.  In October, he speculated:

“I’m not sure how it got to Africa.  But just yesterday I was reading a book.  [. . .]  He worked at the mission.  Name was Cole.  Reverend Sam Cole.  Maybe he was the one who taught them the song.” [27]

This was repeated with more precision in the liner notes:

“How it got to Africa in the first place no one knows for sure.  Perhaps it was the Rev. Sam Cole, whose autobiography was published in 1957.  [. . .]  Perhaps he took the song there.” [28]

Samuel B. Coles was an African American who had worked in Angola as a missionary for the Congregational Church from 1923 to 1953, with breaks in the United States for sabbaticals and World War II. [29]  He died in March 1957 and was buried on Long Island. [30]  His autobiography was published posthumously. [31]  The NAACP’s The Crisis published a review in its October issue, [32] just before Seeger’s appearance. [33]

Seeger’s tale of two missionaries — the one who took it to Africa and the one who brought it back — entered tradition along with “Kumbaya.”

Notes on Audience
Davidson College published profiles of its graduates for their fiftieth reunion.  Most of the white men had followed the professions for which small, liberal arts colleges were known: law, medicine, the ministry, and business.  They were asked what they most remembered from their college years.  The answers were what one would expect: friends, fraternities, dances, and sports.  A number had been in the male chorus.

No one mentioned this event.  Pete Seeger was not well known, unless one followed the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  It had condemned Seeger in 1955 as a Communist and demanded he testify.  The committee did not formally charge him with contempt until March 1957. [34]

However, three men remembered a performance by Louis Armstrong.  That was the concert mentioned most often by the alumni. [35]

Notes on Performers
Eisenberg is profiled in the post for 9 February 2020, and mentioned in the ones for 1 November 2020, 4 November 2020, 3 October 2021, and 13 March 2022.  His photograph appears of the Photo_K tab.

Seeger and his family are discussed in the posts for 11 August 2019, 18 August 2019, and 6 October 2019.

While Seeger remembered meeting Eisenberg at Davidson, Eisenberg recalled they had met during the summer of 1957 at the Idyllwild Arts Foundation in California. [36]  They later collaborated on a Folkways recording of playparties. [37]  He said he “made 50 whole dollars from that.” [38]
 
End Notes
1.  Larry Eisenberg, Brentwood, Tennessee.  Letter to Lynn, 29 January 1957.  Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene and World Around Songs.  ACA was the American Camping Association.  Today, the American Camp Association holds its national conferences in different cities in February.

2.  Larry Eisenberg.  “It’s Me, O Lord.”  Tulsa, Oklahoma: Fun Books, 1992.  51.
3.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  54, 62.

4.  Eisenberg and his wife, the former Helen Park, published The Family Fun Book in 1953, How To Help Folks Have Fun in 1954, How To Lead Group Singing in 1955, and The Omnibus of Fun in 1956.  All were issued by the YMCA’s Association Press in New York City.  Eisenberg recalled: “Eventually I finished eight books for Association before they went out of the book publishing business.” [39]

5.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  62.  Scarritt College is mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021.

6.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  63.  While he was at Chihowie, in Smyth County, he led a charismatic revival that involved faith healing. [40]  Some of the events are described by Brad Scott.  “A Sketch of the History of Charismatic Influence in 20th Century Holston Methodism.”  The United Methodist Church, Holston, Virginia, Conference Historical Society website, 5 October 2017.

7.  Talladega was supported by the American Missionary Association, [41] which was closely associated with the Congregational Church. [42]  Davidson was established in 1837 by The Concord Presbytery of North Carolina. [43]  The two reformed denominations had maintained close ties since Jonathan Edwards brokered a Plan of Union in 1801 that allowed the two churches to combine flocks on the Ohio frontier and use whichever clergymen were present. [44]

8.  I read a memoir on the internet that I didn’t save and haven’t been able to relocate by a Talladega student who described these exchanges.  One of her comments was that the African Americans were far more interested in attending these meetings than were white students.

9.  “Brown v. Board: Timeline of School Integration in the U.S.”  Learning for Justice Magazine, #25, Spring 2004, posted on its website.

10.  “Davidson, North Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.
11.  “Town History Timeline.”  Davidson, North Carolina, town website.

12.  Rick von Unwerth.  “Five Local Businesses ‘Won’t Serve Them’.”  Davidsonian, Davidson College, 3 March 1961.  Reprinted by Caitlin Christian Lamb.  “‘Thereby Hangs a Tale’: The Winding Path to Integration at Davidson.”  Her website, 10 February 2016.

13.  Eisenberg, Letter.

14.  P. Seeger.  “Notes on Background of Songs.”  Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry.  Folkways Records FA2412.  Recorded 27 December 1957, released 1958.

15.  Eisenberg probably did not attend the Student Volunteer Movement meeting and certainly would not have been at the Methodist Church’s national conference in Minneapolis.  This first is discussed in the post for 31 July 2022.  The second is described in the post for 9 October 2022.

16.  Seeger, 1958.
17.  Seeger, 1958.

18.  Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” in February 1957 [45] and appeared on The Steve Allen Show on 28 July 1957. [46]  It had been recorded on 21 March 1955 by Big Maybelle [47] for Okeh Records. [48]

19.  “Hound Dog (Song).”  Wikipedia website.

20.  Elvis Presley.  “Hound Dog.”  RCA Victor 47-6605.  Recorded in New York City on 2 July 1956; released 13 July 13 1956.

21.  Big Mama Thornton.  “Hound Dog.”  Peacock Records 1612.  Recorded in Los Angeles on 13 August 952; released March 1953.

22.  Seeger’s version is discussed in the post for 6 October 2019.

23.  Technically, Angola is on the western coast of central Africa.  One can only call it East Africa, if one assumes west Africa is the section between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and therefore, everything else is east.  Most divide that part of the continent into north, central, and southern sections, and reserve the word “east” for the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean.

24.  Pete Seeger.  “Kumbaya.”  Pete Seeger Live ’57.  Goldenland Records MP3, 2013.  Thomas Stern identified this as a tape from a performance for the Folklore Society of the University of Chicago, 13 October 1957. [49]

25.  Seeger, 1958.

26.  Seeger, 1958.  Once he learned CRS had published the song, he or his representative would have contacted Rohrbough for permission to make the recording.  This sentence sounds like the kind of promotional materials the company might have sent him.  The linear notes say “courtesy of Coop. Recreation Serv.”

27.  Seeger, 1957.
28.  Seeger, 1957.

29.  My article on the origin tales associated with “Kumbaya” [50] discusses Coles and other Black missionaries who served in Angola: Susan Collins, Martha Drummer, and Bessie Fonvielle McDowell.  The first two were at the Methodist mission in Angola where Melvin Blake later served. [51]  The last was the wife of Coles’ mission’s founder.

30.  Marvin & Samme Templin.  “Samuel Bracy Coles.”  Find a Grave website, 29 December 2011.

31.  Samuel B. Coles.  Preacher with a Plow.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.

32.  J. W. I.  Review of Preacher with a Plow.  The Crisis 512:October 1957.  James W. Ivy edited the magazine. [52]

33.  It is remotely possible Coles was at the Davidson meeting.  His daughter’s husband was from Alamance County, North Carolina, [53] and they were living in Durham when they died years later. [54]  In 1970, the couple was reported to be in Liberia. [55]  If they were in North Carolina in 1957 and he was visiting them, Coles might have gone to Davidson.  He had graduated from Talladega.

34.  For more on the accusation against Pete Seeger, see the post for 18 August 2019.

35.  Quips and Cranks 50th Reunion Edition, Class of 1956, edited by Hollis F. Cobb.  Davidson, North Carolina: Davidson College, 2006.

36.  Idyllwild is mentioned in the post for 8 July 2018.

37.  Pete Seeger, Mika Seeger, and Rev. Larry Eisenberg.  American Playparties.  Folkways Records FC 7604.  Released 1959.  Mika, Seeger’s daughter, would have been eleven years old when the record was released.  Most of the songs had been published by Rohrbough.

38.  Eisenberg.  63.
39.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  62.
40.  Eisenberg, It’s Me.  9-13.
41.  “Talladega College.”  Wikipedia website.
42.  “American Missionary Association.”  Wikipedia website.
43.  “Davidson College.”  Wikipedia website.

44.  Sydney E. Ahlstrom.  A Religious History of the American People.  New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1972.  456.

45.  “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”  Wikipedia website.
46.  “Jerry Lee Lewis.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  Wikipedia, Shakin’.

48.  Big Maybelle.  “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On.”  Okeh 4-7060.  Released September 1955.  Quincy Jones was the director.  [Discogs website entry]

49.  Thomas Stern.  Reply to query “Pete Seeger Live ’57.”  Mudcat Café website, 2 May 2016.

50.  Patricia Averill with John Blocher, Jr.  “‘Kumbaya’ and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend.”  Voices 46:26–32:Spring–Summer 2020.  A copy of the final draft is available on the Academia.edu website.

51.  Blake’s time in Angola is discussed in the post for 7 March 2021.
52.  “The Crisis.”  Wikipedia website.
53.  RTerry.  “William Allen Hill.”  Find a Grave website, 17 November 2011.
54.  RTerry.   “Laura Coles Hill.”  Find a Grave website, 11 April 2012.

55.  RTerry, William Allen Hill.  “Mr. Hill had a long and distinguished public service career as an educator at the collegiate and public school levels.  His education career included work in the United States and Liberia, West Africa.”  The name was too common to find references online that identified him more.

The Methodist Church 1956 General Conference - Kum Ba Ya

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
By May 1956, “Kumbaya” was spreading spontaneously outside the domain of CRS songbooks.  Karen remembers she learned it “at a youth night at the Methodist General (international ) Conference in Mps in about 1956.  There were 5000 MY ers singing the song and it was memorable.” [1]

The Methodist Church holds quadrennial meetings [2] to elect members of the hierarchy [3] and decide critical issues.  The one in 1956 voted to accept women in the clergy. [4]

The conference in Minneapolis lasted from Wednesday, April 25, to Wednesday, May 9, and was highly structured.  Most morning programs began with devotions that began and closed with a hymn led by James Houghton.  These were planned in advance, and published in a conference songbook. [5]  The meeting’s songbook did not contain a version of “Kumbaya.” [6]

When the conference reconvened after a morning recess, the assembled sang another hymn and heard a short concert by a college choir.  Afternoon sessions also began with a hymn, and sometimes the choir would reappear after the break.  Given logistics and expense, choral groups probably came by bus.  I assume choirs arrived the day before they were scheduled, and left the day after.

The vote on women was taken on Friday, 4 May, and apparently delegates began leaving after that.  The Journal of the proceedings said on Saturday that “some on the Program have to leave early, and I hope many of them will want to get away before too late.”  The entertainment chairman also asked that those who were leaving early to “notify the ushers know by note so we may fill those places.” [7]

May 5 was an evening of relaxation for the conference.  Instead of holding debates, two famous entertainers appeared: Minnie Pearl and Ralph Edwards. [8]  The first was part of the Grand Ole Opry radio program, and the other had a television program, This Is Your Life.  It had shared an Emmy with What’s My Line? in 1955, when it ranked twelfth in audience size.  That fell to a respectable twenty-sixth place in the 1955–1956 season. [9]

It is not clear if Youth Night was part of the original program, or was added.  The Journal simply said it had been requested by the Minnesota Delegation for a Youth Night. [10]  The event was held “under the supervision of the General Board of Education of The Methodist Church.” [11]

Youth Night differed from the more formal sessions because it began with a Fellowship Sing led by Glen Johnson of Dallas. [12]  Although the conference Journal usually listed hymns led by Houghton or sung by the choirs, it didn’t for this event.

Johnson may have used song sheets that were distributed with the evening’s program, or may have depended on songs being so familiar, songsters weren’t necessary.  If he was the one who introduced “Kumbaya,” he may have learned the words from the Song Sampler.  Rohrbough would have sent copies to all the important people in The Methodist Church. [13]

Johnson may have followed a strict program like the one Larry Eisenberg used at the Christian Youth Conference held on the campus of Purdue University in 1952, [14] or, more informally, he may have called on people to make suggestions.

One possible group would have been the members of college choirs in the audience.  The local Hamline University performed that night, [15] but the Ohio Wesleyan University Choir was scheduled to sing the next evening. [16]  If its director, Rexford Keller, didn’t know Lynn Rohrbough, at least some members of the choir would have.  Some probably attended the Methodist church nearest the Delaware, Ohio, campus where Bliss Wiant was serving between 1953 and 1955.  Some may have had copies of his recently issued Hymns of Universal Praise. [17]

The OWU choir is the most likely source, although one cannot overlook the possibility someone who attended the Student Volunteer Meeting in late 1955 introduced “Kumbaya.”

Regardless of the source or method of teaching “Kumbaya,” the individuals in the audience did not have songbooks with the melody.  If they taught it to others when they returned home, it was from memory.  Each person who did continue to sing the song could have launched a separate line in the radiation of folk tradition.

Title
Kum Ba Ya

Performers
Vocal Group: audience attending Youth Night
Vocal Director: unidentified

Credits
Karen, the woman who remembered singing “Kum Ba Ya,” wrote: “The people who taught us said it came from Africa.” [18]

Notes on Performance
Occasion: Youth Night, 25 May 1956
Location: the audience apparently was seated in the balcony. [19]

Notes on Audience
“MY’ers” referred to members of the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF), the Methodist organization for high school students. [20]  The national conference did not include a youth convention.  This was a special event for members from Minnesota who “have done so very much to help us in getting ready for this Conference.”  The program chairman added “We feel a certain moral obligation for they have put more money into this than we have given to help in the total expense.” [21]

Notes on Performers
Karen attended sessions of the Northland Recreation Laboratory discussed in the post for 26 September 2021.  She was one of the people who answered my email asking if anyone remembered when they learned “Kumbaya.”

Johnson was born in Wisconsin, but his parents soon moved to the lower Río Grande valley in Texas.  Before moving to Dallas 1947, he had headed the music department at the Texas College of Mines in El Paso.  When he was young, he played trombone in dance bands. [22]

Houghton had been directing the Boston University Seminary Singers for 29 years.  In that position, he trained over a thousand ministerial students.  On 26 April, he had his former singers join the group of stage to sing the 130th Psalm and “De Profundis.” [23]

End Notes
1.  Karen.  Email, 30 June 2016.

2.  The quadrennial meetings are the modern form of the camp meetings organized by Francis Asbury in the early 1800s to unify the frontier denomination.  This is discussed briefly in the post for 8 November 2020.

3.  As is clear in the post for 14 August 2022, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church adopted this same organizational model.

4.  Connor S. Kenaston.  “From Rib to Robe: Women’s Ordination in the United Methodist Church.”  Methodist History 53(3):162–172:April 2015.

5.  James R. Houghton.  A Selection of hymns from the Methodist hymnal: for use at the General Conference of the Methodist Church: Municipal Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 25-May 9, 1956.  Nashville, Tennessee: Methodist Publishing House, 1956.

6.  Cassie Brand of the Drew University library said it had no index and was too recent to be photocopied.  She did look through to see if it contained version of “Come by Here” or “Kumbaya.”  She wrote back, “We looked through the book, as it wasn’t large, and neither song appears in the book.” [24]

7.  Journal of the 1956 General Conference of The Methodist Church.  Edited by Lud H. Estes.  Nashville, Tennessee: The Methodist Publishing House.  815.  The Chairman of the Program Committee of the Commission on Entertainment and Program was Paul V. Galloway.  I wish to thank Carlton Young for helping me locate the Journal. [25]

8.  Journal.  879.

9.  “This Is Your Life.”  Wikipedia website.  The Emmy was for Best Audience Participation, Quiz or Panel Program.

10.  Journal.  815.
11.  Journal.  643.
12.  Journal.  867.
13.  The Song Sampler is discussed in the posts for 31 July 2022 and 7 August 2022.
14.  Eisenberg’s song-leading techniques are discussed in the post for 21 May 2021.
15.  Journal.  870.
16.  Journal.  875.
17.  Wiant and Hymns of Universal Praise are discussed in the post for 2 October 2022.
18.  Karen.

19.  The Journal indicated on page 815 that delegates who normally sat in the balcony would be seated on the lower floor that evening.  This would have left the balcony open to the MYF members.

20.  MYF replaced the Epworth League in 1938 after the merger of the northern and southern branches of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  For more information, see the posts for 9 August 2020 and 30 May 2021.

21.  Galloway.  Journal.  815.
22.  “Johnson, Glen R.”  Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, 28 May 2009.
23.  Journal.  297–298.
24.  Cassie Brand, Drew University.  Emails, 17 October 2016.
35.  Carlton Young.  Email, email 6 December 2016.

Bliss Wiant - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough said that, within a year of the first publication of “Kum Ba Yah” in Cooperative Recreation’s Service’s Song Sampler, it had appeared “in a dozen agency books.”  The one he specifically mentioned in a 1959 letter was Hymns of Universal Praise. [1]  It was compiled in February and March of 1956. [2]

Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young intended the hymnal to include “representative hymns of the church universal.” [3]  It included three from India, three from China, one from Japan, and one from Nigeria.  The last had been recorded at the Student Volunteer Movement meeting in December of 1955. [4]

Wiant surely would have attended the SVM meeting discussed in the post for 31 July 2022.  He had been a missionary in China from 1923 [5] until 1952 when  Mao Zedong dismantled the Yenching University [6] where he was working.  The university had been established as a joint enterprise by western Protestant churches. [7]

In the 1930s, he was music editor for Hymns of Universal Praise, [8] an ecumenical collection of songs that combined Chinese musical motifs with Christian theology. [9]  Andrew Leung said the anthology “established the foundation of Chinese hymnody and is now set as a model of Chinese hymnology.” [10]

The CRS Hymns of Universal Praise was unashamedly a hymnal: [11] three were by Charles Wesley, [12] three by Isaac Watt [13] and one was by Martin Luther. [14]  In addition, one melody was by Wesley’s son Samuel. [15]  It was organized by topic, so the spirituals and international texts were scattered through the songster.  Thirty-one of the sixty-seven selections attached “amen” endings. [16]

Fifty-two selections relied upon four-part chords that mirrored the melody, with no tempo or dynamics markings.  Wiant converted “Kumbaya” to this form.  The tune is doubled a third below on the treble clef, and two notes appear in the bass clef.  There are two exceptions to the parallelism.  Only one note is heard in the upper part of the opening phrase, which emphasizes the expansion to the triad on the second note.  The two notes used on the final “Lord” are sung only by the upper part.  The other parts sustained the first note, to again emphasize the melodic variation.

Wiant made one other change to “Kumbaya”: he dropped the “someone’s crying” verse, and reduced it to a three-verse song.  The post for 24 February 2019 reports that liturgists, who include the song in their services, often do not specify all the verses.  The “crying” verse was the least popular stanza among Methodists.

In 1963, Wiant moved to Hong Kong where he worked on the revision of Hymns of Universal Praise for the exiled Chinese living there, [17] and created an English translation for use in this country. [18]  Two years later he retired to Delaware, Ohio. [19]  CRS published a revised edition of its Hymns of Universal Praise in 1965. [20]  This one contained forty-five of the original songs.  It dropped some by Wesley and Watt, as well as those from India and Nigeria.  “Kum Ba Yah” had appeared on the same page as one of the omitted Wesley verses, and also disappeared.  The Chinese songs were grouped together.

Title
Kum Ba Yah

Performers
Vocal Group: four parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano

Credits
Harm. by Bliss Wiant
© 1956 Coop. Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, O. [21]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 3-verse song

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one note to one syllable except for final “Lord”

Harmonic Structure: parallel thirds in trebel clef, parallel fifths in base, diverging harmony at beginnings of phrases

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: four part chords

Notes on Performance
Cover: pattée cross superimposed on a globe with the phrase “All within the four seas are brothers”

Color Scheme: dark brown on tan cover; inside blue-gray ink on off-white paper
Plate: made by Jane Keen

Notes on Audience
Young recalled the songbook “was prepared for general use in events of the North East Conference of the Methodist Church, and may have been used at its Annual Conference, June 1956.” [22]

Notes on Performers
Wiant was raised in central Ohio, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1920.  After completing work at Boston University’s seminary, he went to China as a missionary. [23]  He spent World War II in the United States, where he taught at Scarritt College. [24]  During this time, Wiant produced the first edition of The Pagoda for CRS.  The twenty-five Chinese songs were translated and arranged with four-part chords by Wiant. [25]

When he left China in 1952, Wiant returned to Delaware, Ohio, where he was pastor of the Methodist church near Ohio Wesleyan.  Two years later he transferred to Youngstown. [26]  As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, he moved to Nashville in 1957 as the director of the denomination’s new Ministry of Music.  He died in Delaware in 1975. [27]

Young’s life and career are discussed in the posts for 14 February 2019, 9 August 2020, and 27 December 2020.  One of his most significant tasks was overseeing the 1988 edition of the church’s hymnal.  While Wiant’s later CRS Hymns of Universal Praise retreated from a strong bias toward traditional and international hymns, Young returned to its inclusive vision.  Sam Hodges notes he replaced some of the less popular hymns with “spirituals, contemporary gospel, sacred jazz (by Duke Ellington), and Hispanic hymns.” [28]  Young elevated “Kumbaya” to the canon with his arrangement of the melody he called “Desmond.” [29]

Availability
Book: “Kum Ba Yah.”  31 in Hymns of Universal Praise.  Edited for North East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church by Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956.

End Notes
1.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press, 8 June 1959.  “Our first use of Kum Ba Ya was in the Jan. 1956 Sampler; during the year it came out in a dozen agency books.  One of the earliest was Hymns of Universal Praise, where it seems to fit.”

2.  Carlton Young.  Email, 7 December 2016.
3.  Bliss Wiant and Carleton Young.  Note on inside cover.

4.  “Glory to the Trinity.”  6 in Hymns.  From a recording of Emanuel Fashade and transcribed by Bliss Wiant.

5.  Stacey Bieler.  “Bliss Mitchell Wiant.”  Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity website.

6.  “Yenching University.”  Wikipedia website.
7.  Bieler.

8.  Liu Tingfang and Bliss Wiant.  Hymns of Universal Praise (P’u Ti’en Sung Tsan).  Shanghai, China: Christian Literate Society, 1936.

9.  Calida Chu.  “The Evolution of Hymns of Universal Praise: A Reflection on the Contextualisation of Chinese Hymnology in the Last Century.”  University of Glasgow, Conference on Understanding and Misunderstanding between the Far East and the West, 2017.

10.  Andrew Napp-Kei Leung.  The Emergence of a National Hymnody: The Making of Hymns of Universal Praise (1936).  Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council, 2015.  127.  Quoted by Chu.  10.

11.  Wiant disdained Victorian gospel hymns, which, he claimed, were sentimental and good for nothing.  Its message is that everything is blessed and peaceful.  That’s not the message of Christ.  The message of Christ is ‘Are you able to endure all things as I endure them - even crucifixion?’”  Time reported his preference was for “such Reformation hymns as A Mighty Fortress is Our God and O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” [30]

12.  “A Charge To Keep I Have” (p31), “O for a Thousand Tongues To Sing” (p22), and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” (p40).

13.  “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” (p44) “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” (p64) and “Jesus Shall Reign where’er the Sun” (p59).

14  “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” (pp12–13).
15.  “The Church’s One Foundation” (p41).

16.  The post for 27 November 2017 traces the history of the use and disuse of “amen” endings.  Modernists typically discourage them.

17.  Chu.

18.  Bliss Wiant.  Selected Chinese Indigenous Hymns from Hymns of Universal Praise.  4 July 1965.  United States Copyright Office.  Catalog of Copyright Entries.  Third Series.  July-December 1965.  2291.

19.  Bieler.

20.  Bliss Wiant.  Hymns of Universal Praise.  Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, World Around Songs.  The copyrighted songs are dated 1965.  It has a light blue cover.

21.  This is the only known copyright by CRS for “Kum Ba Yah.”  If this copyright language had appeared in every other songbook, CRS would have a valid right to the song.  However, as shown in the version in Guiana Sings for 7 August 2022, Rohrbough did not do that.  Under the copyright law then in governing music publications, the song entered the public domain as soon as it was published without that notice, and this copyright was reduced to this specific arrangement.  I suspect this copyright probably was not renewed and the arrangement also lost copyright protection.

22.  Young, email.
23.  Bieler.
24.  Scarritt College is mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021.

25.  I have a copy of fifth edition from 1967, which probably means fifth printing.  The Pagoda, arranged by Bliss Wiant.  Cooperative Recreation Service Inc, © 1946, 1967.

26.  Bieler.
27.  Bieler.

28.  Sam Hodges.  “Mr. Music of United Methodism.”  The United Methodist Church Michigan Conference website, 22 September 2020.

29.  For more on the revised Methodist hymnal, see the post for 14 February 2019.
30.  Bliss Wiant.  Interview.  Time, 31 August 1959.  Quoted by Bieler.