Someone’s singing Lord, kumbaya. Someone’s singing Lord, kumbaya.

For decades, the dominant narrative was that a white evangelist, the Rev. Marvin V. Frey, had originally composed “Kumbaya.” This story was spread in part by Mr. Frey himself, who got a copyright on the song in 1939, claiming to have written it in 1936 based on a prayer he heard in Oregon.

Something about that story never sat right with Stephen Winick, who has a Ph.D. in folklore. For one, the song sounds like something from the African-American tradition. Mr. Winick had also heard rumors that there was an earlier recording of the song in the archives of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, where he works.

“I think it’s important to restore cultural materials to their communities of origin,” he said. “Give credit where it’s due.”

Several years ago, Mr. Winick dug up that old wax cylinder recording. It was captured in 1926 by Robert Winslow Gordon, the first head of the Archive of American Folk Song. It was the recording of H. Wylie singing “Come By Here” in an accent that sounds like “kumbaya,” a decade before Mr. Frey claimed to have written “Kumbaya.” Mr. Winick said it was possible that Mr. Frey may have heard a prayer with the kumbaya lyrics, and composed them into a song, thinking he was the first to do so. But the evidence on that remains murky.

Mr. Winick also found in the archives lyrics collected in 1926 by a high school student outside of Gullah territory for a song similar to “Come By Here.” That raised the possibility, Mr. Winick said, that the song might not have originated with the Gullah Geechee, though he maintains that it is quite possible that they could be its creators. The version of the song as we know it today very likely traces to the Gullahs because of the pronunciation of “come by here” as “kumbaya,” he said.

“I think that in the general public, if you ask someone on the street, ‘What does kumbaya mean,’ they wouldn’t know,” he said. “They would think it means joining hands and being friendly to each other.”