About – Sancho Conference

This conference presents the ongoing work of “The Arts as Black Resistance in Eighteenth-Century London: The Life and World of Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780),” an interdisciplinary research group affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University and that includes subject experts at other institutions in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The focus of our project is Ignatius Sancho, a Black British writer born into slavery and the first Black person to publish original musical compositions. Sancho was deeply engaged with the visual and performing arts—music, literature, theater, dance, and visual art—as means for resisting discrimination, dehumanization, and the enslavement of Black people in London and across the British empire. Despite the importance of his work, Sancho’s story—especially his engagement with the arts—remains little known today. Our team, comprised of humanities scholars of the arts as well as arts practitioners, is working to build a digital platform that sheds new light on the arts in Sancho’s worldview and practice. In 2023 we plan to launch this website, which will include resources for the general public to learn about the arts in Sancho’s worldview and practice, as well as materials for middle- and high-school teachers to use as a means of exploring antiracism in the arts with their students. Ultimately, our project will offer a new understanding of Ignatius Sancho as a figure embedded within a racially and culturally complex landscape, highlighting the role of the arts in advancing the cause of racial justice.