In true full circle effect, I found this online column http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/08/someones_dissin.html [Eric Zorn; Change of Subject
A Chicago Tribune Web log; Originally posted: August 31, 2006]
that references this Mudcat thread as having the best online discussion of the origins of Kumbayah.

{On behalf of the other posters to this thread, "Thanks for the shout out, Eric!]

Here's an excerpt from that article:

"Someone's dissin', Lord, kumbaya

Poor "Kumbaya."

Its title has become synonymous with sappy, saccharine naiveté and peace-`n'-love, all-join-hands Pollyannaism that afflicts the starry-eyed. I've used the metaphor myself, even though I know it's a cliché that unfairly maligns a stirring and storied piece of music.

"Kumbaya" - also commonly spelled "Kumbayah" and "Kum-Ba-Yah"- is a glorious song, really. That's how it got popular enough to become a cliché in the first place.

The stately melody invites harmonies and is as simple as the words to the refrain: "Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya" repeated three times. Then "Oh, Lord, Kumbaya."

Its origins are in dispute. Some folk historians say it started as "Come By Here," a 1930s-era composition by New York City clergyman Martin Frey. Missionaries took it to Africa, where natives pronounced the title, "Kum Ba Yah."

Others say the song originated far earlier among the Gullah people-- African-Americans living in the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia-and that "Kum Ba Yah" is "Come By Here" in their dialect.

Either way, the song had cross-cultural bonafides that lifted it out of the ordinary when it appeared on the scene during the folk boom of the 1950s and 1960s.   It's gentle call for divine presence struck a spiritual but non-sectarian tone.

The Weavers, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and many others covered "Kumbaya," and it turned out to be perfect for campfires, hootenannies and guitar masses (giving rise to the expression, "Kumbaya Catholics"). Perhaps too perfect.

Chicago folklorist Paul Tyler says that the song "became banal at the hands of non-African-American camp counselors and church youth workers--include me in that number--who stripped it of any rhythmic integrity." (more from Tyler below)

The stately melody turned into vanilla dirge. And, in the backlash, "Kumbaya" came to represent shallow goodwill based on nothing more profound than the humdrum participles that differentiate the verses ("someone's sleeping, Lord..." "someone's praying, Lord..." and so on)...

[Pete Seeger interview cited]:

The man who wrote "Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya," thought he wrote that until the day he died, he was sure he wrote it. He was very proud that African-Americans had speeded up his song and they liked to sing

"Come by here my lord
Come by here
Oh Lord, Come by here."

However, in the Library of Congress they played a recording for me of that song sung in 1920. Marvin Frey made up the slow version about 1936 or 37. He taught it to a family of missionaries that was going to Angola, and there they changed 'come by here' to Kumbaya,' the African pronunciation. Then it was brought back here." ...
-snip-

That online Chicago Tribune column starts with a link to this Youtube clip of a TV commercial for Bazooka bubble gum which began airing in August 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XId0KW9Uy0U&eurl=

Here is Eric Zorn's description of that tv commercial/YouTube:

Smarmy, 20-ish bearded dude with hair down to his shoulders, wearing a tie-dye T-shirt and head scarf and sitting at a campfire with a guitar on his knee: Hi kids, welcome to Camp Chippewa. And let's all sing "Kumbaya."

Contemptuous campers, rhythmically: We don't want no "Kumbaya," All we want is bubble-gum! Bazooka-zooka bubble gum.

The Heights, a rap group, suddenly appearing: Bubble-gum! Bazooka-zooka bubble gum! Some gum!"