Rising Sun - Kumbaya -

The marsh grass of Darien, Georgia, swayed in the salt-heavy air as the first sliver of the sun broke over the Atlantic. For the Gullah Geechee people, this was not just the start of another day of labor, but a moment of silent, communal prayer.

Decades later, in 1926, a man named Robert Winslow Gordon arrived with a wax cylinder recorder. He captured Henry Wylie’s voice, preserving the spiritual just as it had been sung for generations. Kumbaya: History of an Old Song | Folklife Today Rising Sun - Kumbaya

To the overseers, it sounded like a strange, foreign chant—harmless and melodic. But to Henry and his community, it was a . They sang it when the sun rose to ask for strength to endure the day's cruelties, and they sang it when the sun set to mourn those who had been sold away. The marsh grass of Darien, Georgia, swayed in