Melvin Blake - Scarritt College

Topic: CRS Version
There is no proof Melvin Blake is the source for “Kumbaya,” only the comment by Lynn Rohrbough mentioned in the post for 4 October 2020.  A circumstantial case can be made, but it all comes down to character and opportunity.

Blake meets the minimum requirement for the person who passed on “Kumbaya”: he was a life-long singer.  He sang in college, [1] organized a choir while he was in working in Angola, [2] and joined a men’s chorus after he retired. [3]

However, Blake’s family is not sure that he would have attended meetings where he might have heard “Come by Here,” or that it would have passed it on.  Some do not think it likely he would have taken on such a leadership role.  Others think he was not one to hide his musical talents.

That leaves it to the institutions where he may have heard or joined singing: Scarritt College during the 1951–1952 school year,  the Methodist youth conference at Purdue University in 1952, and Epworth Forest in northeastern Indiana.

The most important fact about Scarritt is that it was in Nashville, Tennessee, where a copy of “Oh, Lord, Come by Here” was published in 1934 with the melody that was modified by John Blocher after it had been corrupted in oral transmission. [4]

Walter Meader, the arranger of “Come by Here,” was active in a small Pentecostal church in the city.  As mentioned in the post for 9 May 2021, a Church of God minister reprinted Meador’s arrangement the next year in Cleveland, Tennessee, near Chattanooga. [5]  This Pentecostal denomination was begun by Robert Spurling.

Scarritt was founded by women in the Methodist Episcopal Church South to support their missionary efforts.  In the Congo, they supplied the nurses and teachers for the mission at Minga in Katanga province. [6]

During the Depression, Scarritt began thinking about the needs of rural churches.  In 1942, it opened a training center in Cumberland County, [7] mountain miles from Cleveland and Nashville, that offered short-term training programs and operated a demonstration farm. [8]  Any student could have introduced the Meador song in Crossville.

In 1942, [9] with the merger of the Northern and Southern churches, the women’s school came under control of The Methodist Church.  In 1943, a Northern man, Hugh Stuntz, was appointed president. [10]  The transition occurred during World War II, when financial contributions were smaller. [11]

Like any Northerner, Stuntz was interested in upgrading the quality of the school, within the limits of his budget.  It only had been accredited in 1940, [12] and many of its academic programs included courses at Vanderbilt University and George Peabody College for Teachers.

Stuntz closed the rural education center in 1950, and transferred the real estate to the local church conference.  The Nashville campus took over the rural mission work. [13]

In its place, he initiated the graduate program in anthropology [14] in which Blake was a student.  He took some of his classes at Vanderbilt, [15] but would have met no African Americans in them.

Tennessee’s segregation laws had become more stringent in 1942. [16]  Two Blacks had sued the state for admission to graduate programs at the University of Tennessee on the grounds the state did not provide equivalent programs for them.  The judge ruled that simply meant Tennessee had some unfulfilled obligations. [17]

This ruling complicated Scarritt’s relationships with local Black colleges.  Alice Cobb said that, while African Americans no longer could take classes, they were not completely forbidden from coming to the campus.  The school often hosted meetings of national organizations that “could not meet and find housing together for their white and black members anywhere else in the area.” [18]

Blake probably would have had no contact with these people.  He was not living in a dormitory, but in a house with his wife and family.  This, along with the time required to prepare for this classes, probably kept him at home.

The one exception may have been the social events sponsored by the church.  If the church that served the campus area had weekly fellowship meetings, he no doubt would have felt compelled to attend most weeks.  People in other places have indicated informal singing was part of the fellowship meetings they attended: Claire Lovejoy Lennon, who taught Titus “Come by Here,” sang it in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1957, [19] while a Camp Fire leader in my Michigan hometown remembered singing “Kumbaya” later. [20]

This seems the most likely place for Blake to have heard either Meador’s version of “Come by Here,” or a version that preceded or followed his.  Although it is not clear what happened to the employees of the Crossville center, some may have transferred to Nashville.  They certainly would have come to meetings, as would people from rural areas.

The Board on Missionary Education, which employed Titus, had built its headquarters building near the campus. [21]  Certainly Blake would have attended meetings, and possibly social functions there.  This would have been another place visiting Blacks or whites could have passed on “Come by Here.”

A more celebratory event would have been Rural Life Sunday.  It had begun in the 1930s under the sponsorship of the Federal Council of Churches on the fifth Sunday after Easter. [22]  That would have been May 18 in 1952.

Cobb indicated that after Stuntz closed the rural life program, the school began working with local Black churches.  She remembered:

“In the 1950s it was almost unheard of for black people and white people, especially rural people, to meet for worship services and to break bread together.  The Scarritt Rural Life Sunday, an annual affair with dinner together in the Susie Gray Dining Hall, followed by integrated workshops, was a startling innovation.” [23]

This would just have been beginning when Blake was at Scarritt, but it would have been one possible place for him to hear local Black religious music in the segregated South.

If Blake heard “Come by Here” from someone involved with rural outreach at a Scarritt College social function, it is possible Titus heard it at the same time.  Since the song would have been new to her, she may have asked Lennon about it.  This hypothetical request would have occurred after 1952, and be fresher in Lennon’s memory when she wrote to Rohrbough in 1956.

End Notes
1.  See post for 28 February 2021.
2.  See post for 7 March 2021.
3.  See post for 14 March 2021.
4.  This version is reprinted in the post for 9 May 2021.

5.  This is the Church of God associated with Robert Spurling and Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson.

6.  Christie R. House.  “Minga Hospital.”  Methodist Mission 200 website.  The Northern Methodist Episcopal Church had no parallel institution.  May Titus took her classes at the Hartford Seminary. [24]  Blake was sent to the Kennedy School for his preliminary missionary training. [25]

7.  Alice Cobb.  “Yes, Lord, I’ll Do It”: Scarritt’s Century of Christian Service.  Nashville, Tennessee: Scarritt College, 1987.  54–55.

8.  Cobb.  67.

9.  The merger became official in 1939, but took time.  Boston University has records of the Southern women’s group through 1942. [26]

10.  Cobb.  61.

11.  Albert L. Gray, Jr.  “Methodist Membership and Financial Contributions Before and After Unification.”  Methodist History 3:43–47:October 1964.  44.

12.  Cobb.  52.
13.  Cobb.  67.
14.  Cobb.  66.

15.  “African Missionary To Give Account Of Methodist Work.”  The [Greenfield, Indiana] Daily Reporter.  11 August 1952.  1.

16.  Cobb.  53.

17.  “State ex Rel. Michael v. Witham.”  Case Text website.  The case was decided by David William DeHaven on 7 November 1942.

18.  Cobb.  74.

19.  Claire M. Lennon.  Letter to Mr. Rohrbough.  19 November 1956.  WAS.  In typescript version only.  The post for 14 October 2020 has more information about this letter.

20. Lucille Parker Munk.  Interview, fall 1974.  She is profiled in Camp Songs, Folk Songs.

21.  Cobb.  63.

22.  Kevin M. Lowe.  “Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural Community, 1910-1970.”  PhD dissertation.  The Pennsylvania State University, December 2013.  104–105.

23.  Cobb.   68.
24.  For more on Titus, see post for 1 November 2020.
25.  See post for 7 March 2021.
26.  “Missions on Microfilm.”  Boston University website.

Walter Awood Meador - Oh, Lord, Come by Here

Topic: CRS Version
Walter Awood Meador published the first version of the 1-3-5 melody in 1934.  In addition to the tune, his first three verses had the same themes that would appear in the version of “Kum Ba Yah” published by Cooperative Recreation Service in 1955.

It began with the traditional “somebody needs you.”  This was followed by “somebody’s praying” and “somebody’s happy.”  The CRS verses were “someone’s crying,” “someone’s singing” and “someone’s praying.”

Meador claimed to have written the lyrics and arranged the melody, and that is probably true.  The first three verses use the statement-refrain line format and describe the actions of the unspecified somebody.  Several of the later verses expand the “need” to the steps for initiation into the church.  These do not have refrains.

The difference in format between the earlier and later verses suggests he heard some form of “Come by Here” and adapted it.  Whether or not he modified the “happy” verse is unknowable at this time.

Meador’s wife [1] founded The Emmanuel Church of Christ, in Nashville.  It followed “Oneness Pentecostalism” that posited a single god, not the trinity. [2]  Frank Ewart introduced the idea to Pentecostals in 1914.  His most influence convert was Garfield Haywood, an African American who opened his Christ Temple in Indianapolis to all races. [3]

Nina Gregory Meador’s church was independent, and she seems to have only had contacts with white churches.  When she wanted to be baptized, she went to Bay City, Texas, on the Gulf coast. [4]  If Meador did not have a direct contact with an African American who knew the song, he may have heard it from some white who did.

His version of “Come by Here” gained wider exposure in 1935 when Orion Alewhite included it in his second song collection.  He listed Anderson, South Carolina, as his home, [5] but apparently was living in Detroit. [6]  He held a revival in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1935 that featured “special string music and singing.” [7]

Alewine was associated with Richard Spurling’s [8] Church of God.  It grew out of Baptist churches in eastern Tennessee in the 1890s, and expanded under the leadership of Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson. [9]  The latter was a Quaker from Westfield, Indiana, who was about five years older than Varner Chance’s father. [10]  The Holiness denominations main activities were in the mountains where most of the residents were white.

Both Nina’s church and Spurling’s Church of God are premillennial.  Emmanuel Apostolic believes it is “a continuation of the great Apostolic Revival which began at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 33” and that we are living “under the latter day reign of the Holy Ghost.” [11]  Both churches recognize speaking in tongues as evidence that an individual has been baptized by the Holy Ghost. [12]

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: four part
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Arr. by W. A. Meador
Copyright, 1934, by W. A. Meador in “Gospel Light Songs”

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English

Verses: needs you, sorry, praying, happy, here to be sanctified, loves you, needs to be baptized, needs the Holy Ghost, praising

Pronoun: somebody
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Length: four lines
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB

Line Form: lines in first three verses end with the refrain “come by here;” the others end with a variation of the first part of the line

Ending: none
Unique Features: emphasis on conversion

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: not indicated
Key Signature: two sharps
Basic Structure: strophic repetition

Harmonic Structure: parallel thirds in upper two parts; divergent harmony in lower two parts

Singing Style: one syllable to one note including the final “Lord”
Special Features: shape notes

Notes on Performance
The Gospel Light Songs has tan, cardboard covers with a black fabric binding.  A cross is in the center, with scrolls radiating from it.  The inscription in the cross is:
J (top section)
Is Jesus (crossbar)
Jehovah (entire vertical section)

Notes on Performers
Meador’s family had lived in Macon County, Tennessee, on the Kentucky border, since the early nineteenth century when his great-great-grandfather moved from the Virginia Piedmont. [13]  Jobe Meador probably was in Tennessee when the Cane Ridge Revival broke out in 1801.

Walter was a machinist in the U. S. Navy during World War I, [14] and was injured.  Afterwards, he became a lawyer. [15]

His wife had closer ties to Cane Ridge.  Her family’s farm was on the Red River [16].  Her great-great-great-grandfather was a Methodist who left Virginia for Kentucky in 1788. [17]   His descendants moved about Kentucky and Tennessee; her grandfather was buried in Gallatin, [18] mentioned in the post for 2 May 2021.

Nina’s father was a Baptist deacon, while her mother was a “sanctified Methodist.”  She attended services in both, and professed her faith in 1912, when she was twelve years old.  She joined the Holiness group when she was twenty, which may have been before she met Meador.  She began preaching in 1925, and held revivals in Logan County, Kentucky, and Gallatin. [19]

Emmanuel Church of Christ was legally organized as a church in 1933. [20]  Meador published his songbook the next year.

Alewine’s immigrant ancestor was a Huguenot who fled Alsace for Rotterdam. [21]  His great-grandfather was a farmer near Abbeville, South Carolina in 1870. [22]  Ten years later, his grandfather was a laborer in Abbeville.  By 1910, the thirteen-year-old Alewine and his father were working in a cotton mill near Atlanta. [23]

Alewine may have moved north during World War II, or in the years immediately after.  He was a Church of God preacher in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1932. [24]  He moved back to Anderson, South Carlina, in the fall of that year. [25]  In 1934, he and his wife enrolled in classes in the church’s Bible Training School in Cleveland, Ohio, and, as mentioned above, were listing Detroit, Michigan, as their home. [26]

His next 1935 songbook was published in Cleveland, Tennessee, and Hartwell, Georgia, [27] another mill town about 25 miles from Anderson. [28]  He died there in 1945. [29]

Meador lived until 1954, [30] when his wife remarried on 14 January in Nashville. [31]

Availability
Book: W. A. Meador.  “Oh, Lord, Come by Here.”  28 in The Gospel Light Songs.  Nashville, Tennessee: 1934.

Book: W. A. Meador.  “Oh, Lord, come by here.”  In Chimes of Glory No 2.  Edited by Orion L. Alewine.  Cleveland, Tennessee: 1935. [WorldCat entry]

Graphics
1.  Copy of “Oh, Lord, Come by Here” in The Gospel Light Songs.  Copy provided by Nancy Richey from the Kentucky Library Research collections of the University of Western Kentucky.

2.  Meador’s photograph appears on the Photo C tab.

End Notes
1.  Linda Carpenter.  Notes for George William Washington Gregory in “George Moses Dallas & Mary Ann Eunice (Hughes) Gregory.”  RootsWeb website.  2007.

2.  “About Our Organization.”  Emmanuel Apostolic website.  This is the current name for Emmanuel Church of Christ.

3.  Vinson Synan.  The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 172–173.  Haywood wrote most of the songs in his church’s songbook, The Bridegroom Songs. [32]

4.  Emmanuel Apostolic.

5.  The publication locations for the songbook were Cleveland, Tennessee, headquarters of the Church of God, and Anderson, South Carolina.

6.  The Church of God Bible Training School.  Catalog for 1934–1935.  Nora Alewine and Orion Alewine are listed as freshmen from Detroit on page 32.

7.  Item.  Battle Creek Enquirer, Battle Creek, Michigan, 12 June 1935.  9.

8.  “What is the Church of God (COG), and what do they believe?”  Got Questions website.

9.  Wikipedia.  “Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee).”

10.  Wikipedia.  “Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson.”  Chance is discussed in the post for 21 March 2021.  Tomlinson was born in 1865 and Enoch Alvin Chance in 1869.  These sorts of connections are interesting because, while they do not indicate direct influences, they suggest shared cultural values that lead to an appreciation of “Come by Here.”

11.  Emmanuel Apostolic.

12.  Emmanuel Apostolic.

“Declaration of Faith.”  Church of God website.

13.  Rock Talker.  “Jobe Meador.”  Find a Grave website.  27 March 2009.  Updated by Michael Meador.  His immigrant ancestor migrated from Suffolk, England, by 1738. [33]

14.  US Veterans Affairs Office.  “Walter Awood Meador.”  Find a Grave website.  3 March 2000.  Updated by Rock Talker.

15.  “Walter Awood Meador, LL,B., LL.M.” Gospel Light Songs.
16.  Emmanuel Apostolic.
17.  Daniel Gregory.  “Richard W. Gregory.”  Find a Grave website.  26 March 2014.

18.  Sent with love~Cerise.  “George M. Dallas Gregory.”  Find a Grave website.  4 March 2005.

19.  Emmanuel Apostolic.  Logan County was the initial center of the Cane Ridge revival; it is mentioned in the post for 8 November 2020.

20.  Emmanuel Apostolic.

21.  shirley amerson.  “John George (Johann Georg Genewyn) Alewine.”  Find a Grave website.  7 March 2019.

22.  Bill Alewine.  “Abraham Alewine.”  Find a Grave website.  21 November 2018.
 
23.  Bill Alewine.  “Re: George Benjamin Alewine.”  Genealogy website. October 03, 2009.

24.  Item.  Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, Ohio, 19 April 1932.  7.
25.  Item.  Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, Ohio, 29 September 1932.  8.

26.  Bible Training School catalog.  This school became the Lee College that was attended by Clariece Paulk.  She is mentioned in the post for 11 October 2018.

27.  Orion L. Alewine.  Chimes of glory. No. 3.  Cleveland, Tennessee, and Hartwell, Georgia, 1935. [WorldCat entry]

28.  Wikipedia.  “Hartwell, Georgia.”
29.  Bobbie O’Barr.  “Orion L. Alewine.”  Find a Grave website.  18 January 2012.
30.  US Veterans Affairs Office.

31.  kimshockey (reb).  “Elder Nina May Gregory Pierce.”  Find a Grave website.  3 June 2005.  Updated by Victor E. Everhart.

32.  The Bridegroom Songs.  Indianapolis: Christ Temple, no date, purchased in 2016.

33.  Walter Pack Family.  “Thomas Meador.”  Find a Grave website.  2 March 2012.  The first child was born in York County, Virginia, in 1738.