Interesting article about the origins of the song that everyone knows as 'Kumbya.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/us/20religion.html?_r=1&ref=samuel_g_freedman
The article says that the song was discovered, so to speak, by an unemployed professor in 1926, who recorded it on a hand-cranked recording device, from where it evolved into the popular hippie tune of the 60's, and in turn the mocking insult of today.
'Kumbaya' is now thought to be derived from 'Come by here' sung by slaves who wanted a visit from God to their corner of the world. As usual the hippies got it all wrong, thinking that it was an actual African word. It turns out that there is no such word known in any African tongue:
By the late 1950s, though, it was being called “Kumbaya.” Mr. Seeger, in liner notes to a 1959 album, claimed that America missionaries had brought “Come By Here” to Angola and it had returned retitled with an African word.
Experts like Stephen P. Winick of the Library of Congress say that it is likely that the song traveled to Africa with missionaries, as many other spirituals did, but that no scholar has ever found an indigenous word “kumbaya” with a relevant meaning. More likely, experts suggest, is that in the Gullah patois of blacks on the Georgia coast, “Come By Here” sounded like “Kumbaya” to white ears.
"Kumbaya" became kind of a term of derision from people on the right, but the article notes that left-wingers have eagerly chimed in that they don't like it either:
Yet while running for president, Barack Obama once said, “The politics of hope is not about holding hands and singing, ‘Kumbaya.’ ” His education secretary, Arne Duncan, said last month, “I’m a big believer in less of singing ‘Kumbaya’ together and going on retreats than in rolling up our sleeves and doing work together.” The activist filmmaker Michael Moore said of President Obama’s appeal for bipartisanship after the Democrats’ “shellacking” in the midterm elections, “You don’t respond with ‘Kumbaya.’ ”
Here is female hippie singer Joan Baez with a rousing version of 'kumbaya.' Per typical with hippies, I'm guessing that she had no idea what it really meant.