The Necessity of Cumbayah Moments

While there are different versions of Cumbayah’s origin story, the one most likely is that it was a song of the Gullah Geechee people of the Sea Islands of Georgia. According to Dr. Sumpter, Gullah Geechee people resisted the prohibitions of enslavement and sustained ethnic traditions from one generation to the next through language, agriculture, and spirituality. When heard against this backdrop of herstory, Cumbayah is transformed from a naïve panacea for peace to a call for action amidst the most oppressive of conditions.