Pomona College’s alma mater, “Hail, Pomona, Hail!” and “Torchbearers” are some of Pomona’s most popular songs. In 2008 and 2015, respectively, however, these glorified songs were banned.
Pomona’s website clearly describes why: The songs are rooted in Blackface minstrelsy and cultural appropriation. Even with Pomona’s attempt to acknowledge its faults, the alma mater’s historical meaning persists. Publicizing this history may damage Pomona’s progressive image, but the question of how Pomona should reckon with its alma maters will allow the student body to meaningfully engage with Pomona’s legacy and reignite the school spirit that alma maters are meant to inspire.
If Pomona truly values the communities it claims to support, it must engage students in discourse of Pomona’s history with alma maters, not erase the old one in private.
As a student recording engineer for Pomona’s Music Department, I’ve had the privilege of spending hours engaging with the musical talent of Pomona’s musicians. In a recent shift, I looked through the college’s musical archives and reflected on school spirit at the 5Cs. “Torchbearers” and “Hail, Pomona, Hail!” stood out. These songs, frequently performed by the college’s choir and Glee Club at sports games, alumni gatherings and major ceremonies, evoked a collective pride I rarely witness today.
It is a pride that a scattered “Go Sagehens!” or “47” reference can hardly rival.
But the songs’ histories reveal troubling legacies. “Hail, Pomona, Hail!” was linked to Blackface minstrelsy, a form of 19th- and early 20th-century entertainment that dehumanized Black Americans, where White performers “portrayed racist stereotypes of Black people,” as described on Pomona’s website.
It’s worth noting, however, that this practice wasn’t at all uncommon across our nation’s college campuses. The University of Texas’ alma mater, “The Eyes of Texas,” for example, had similar roots in Blackface. A group of the university’s football players requested the song’s suspension in June 2020. The university’s controversial response, however, was that the university would continue to sing it “with a redefined vision that unites our community.” This “redefined vision” proved merely a means of ignoring problematic ties for the sake of tradition.
“Hail, Pomona, Hail!” was last performed during a 2007 alumni weekend and was retired in 2008, following the anonymous distribution of flyers that raised widespread awareness of its racist origins. Prior to that, the history was previously only in songbooks and a few issues of the Pomona College magazine after 2000.
Then there was the “Torchbearers,” one of Pomona’s most celebrated songs.
“Torchbearers” was brought to Pomona by two professors interested in an Indigenous community native to the region, the Cahuilla. Pomona’s records show that the professors portrayed a romanticized narrative of harmony between settlers and Indigenous communities.
First introduced in 1895, it won the 1932 National Glee Club competition in St. Louis. Many criticized the piece as offensive to Native Americans and an “inappropriate validation of the nineteenth-century concept of manifest destiny that drove U.S. expansionist policies at the time.” The song was effectively phased out in 2016, and “Amazing Grace” was its replacement.
To be clear, I’m not nostalgic for these songs or suggesting they be revived. I also don’t expect that a student-driven alma mater would rekindle school spirit. That’s not the issue. What concerns me is the precedent set by administrative silence. Left without student input, the administration can only issue a hasty replacement, like “Amazing Grace,” that isn’t representative of the student body.
Pomona has “reconsider[ed] the appropriateness” of these songs in recent years. In reality, they were phased out by then-President David Oxtoby, alumni associations and other members of the administration.
The lack of public visibility only continues today: Though publicly accessible, uncovering this information on the website still requires deliberate effort and the administration has not publicly addressed how it intends to move forward.
I’m not saying that Pomona should publicize every institutional quarrel. But in this case, students should have been informed of the meaningful discussions among the administration that led to the decision to ban and replace the song. Progressivism entails that decisions must be made for and with the input of the people that progressivism is meant to serve.
Our history mirrors that of collegiate institutions in the Northeast, and we should engage with their pasts. Harvard, for example, has published an extensive report on its legacy of slavery and racial injustice. A similar report at Pomona detailing the problematic parts of its legacy would be a helpful step forward.
Our discomfort around songs with troubling roots should be a catalyst, not a dead end. We shouldn’t bury these problematic histories out of shame. We should formally recognize them and engage students to create a new alma mater — or at least something that addresses the weight of these histories.
A student-driven alma mater could reflect the incredibly diverse, multi-talented student body we are today. It has the potential to unite students across class years, majors and social circles, reframing “school spirit” as something more than just party culture or athletic events. It might even set a precedent for the other Claremont Colleges.
We can preserve the significance of musical pride by using this controversy as a moment of intentional discourse and community revision, rather than a tool for institutional self-protection. Should we continue to censor artistic expression without incorporating our voices and opinions, Pomona risks alienating the very communities it seeks to protect.
Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 is from Brooklyn, New York. If she could, she’d bring back campus traditions of musical and athletic collaboration.
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