Organisers of the National Civil Rights Movement hope to seize the momentum created by the Stephen Lawrence campaign, and aim to maintain pressure on the Government to ensure the recommendations set out in the Macpherson report are swiftly implemented.
Its founders hope to unite for the first time under one umbrella the plethora of grass-roots campaign groups which have grown up all over the country to make sure that all victims of racial or religious discrimination have access to the same support.
They stressed yesterday that the body would remain a political and would model itself on the Lawrence family's campaigning style, drawing on the experiences of families who have found themselves in similar situations.
In a highly-charged and often emotional launch ceremony in London yesterday, families and representatives of 15 recent victims of racial or religious discrimination gave testimony to the difficulties they had faced. Some of the audience were moved to tears by their accounts of how friends and relatives had struggled against ingrained hostility and racism within Britain's institutions.
The meeting at the packed Camden Centre, central London, began with a minute's silence for Rosemary Nelson, the civil rights lawyer murdered in Northern Ireland this month, who had planned to speak at the launch.
Banners had been draped around the hall together with the names and faces of recent high-profile victims of racist attacks and institutional racism such as Roger Sylvester, Michael Menson and Ricky Reel.
One after another, relatives or friends of each victim stood up to tell their story. Sukhdev Reel, mother of 20-year-old Ricky, who went missing after being racially abused by white youths in west London 18 months ago, said that although the incident was reported immediately, police took no action that night, and later, when his body was pulled out of the Thames, they concluded that no further inquiries were necessary. Police handling of the case has been investigated.
Describing the difficulties her family had experienced in trying to force the police to take her son's death seriously, Mrs Reel stressed the need for a nationwide organisation. 'It is very important for families to feel that they are not isolated. Something needs to be done, because where is the justice if racism is still alive and my son is dead?'
Her words were echoed by Kwesi Menson whose brother Michael was burned to death on London's North Circular Road. Police handling of his murder has also been the subject of investigation. 'Families like mine should not have to fight for justice.' Organisers hope to combine campaigning with practical support and they propose to set up a national race and policing help line and a database of recommended lawyers and advice agencies.
Michael Mansfield, the barrister who represented the Lawrence family, and a driving force behind the campaign. 'Each of these families has fought the same battle, but there has been no continuity and no solidarity until now.'
Suresh Grover, manager of the Monitoring Group, the London-based anti-racist campaigning body, said it had been hard to persuade individual pressure groups to put aside their differences.
'Over the last 20 years the situation for black people in this country has got worse. They have become poorer, while more and more people are getting a raw deal from the criminal justice system. We have a window off opportunity now, as a result of the campaigning about the Lawrence case. We mustn't lose this moment.'
