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.