Happy birthday Operation Black Vote

I later reflected that another milestone had passed and yet, like our 10th anniversary, we at Operation Black Vote (OBV) had forgotten to celebrate our organisation and our small but significant achievements.

Not unlike the Labour's black sections, OBV was born out of what we viewed as social and racial injustices that could be and should be addressed within civic society, particularly focusing on the bastion of British power - Westminster. The first challenge for the project's architects - Rita Patel, Lee Jasper, Derek Hinds, Ashok Viswanathan and I - was to find a solid base from which to empower black communities to engage politically as never before.

The findings of our six-months of research, prior to the launch, excited everyone involved. The data showed that the entrenched belief that Britain's black communities were politically powerless was, in no small measure, fundamentally wrong.

We may have felt powerless, but the concentration of black communities in many urban areas meant that in reality we had the potential to decide over 100 parliamentary seats in any general election. Juxtapose this with the then government's majority of 21 seats, and you begin to see the political possibilities we had in a fiercely fought contest.

We now felt we had a powerful narrative that would inspire black people up and down the country to register to vote and vote. The realisation of our voting power would also serve notice on mainstream political parties, who we argued would ignore us at their peril.

These were exciting times. The launch at the House of Commons' Grand Common Rooms was filled with journalists wondering what to make of this explosion of black politics. Diane Abbott MP, Lee Jasper, Rita Patel and I all spoke passionately about our short, medium and long term plans.

Later we launched groundbreaking poster campaigns by advertising gurus Jon Daniels and Trevor Robinson of "You've been tangoed" fame. The first ad campaign depicted party leaders along with their constituency telephone numbers. We urged our communities to call the party leaders direct, in what was for some their first political act.

Packed public meetings followed, particularly in those marginal seats in which the black vote was crucial. Not surprisingly all the party candidates attended. Looking back now, it is fair to say that this was the first time in British history that so many candidates were held to account by the black electorate.

The leaders too responded accordingly. The then prime minister John Major proudly called himself the "Brixton boy". Tony Blair "boasted, I've fought racism all my life and will continue to do so." Paddy Ashdown proudly paraded his black candidates in a bid to woo black voters.

There was a special moment for many of us during the 1997 election campaign when the then shadow home office minister, Jack Straw, called our offices to ask if he could announce at an OBV event that a public inquiry into Stephen Lawrence's murder would be launched, should Labour be elected. Two days later at the offices of the 1990 Trust, Straw made the announcement. The most significant changes in race relations law since the original act came out of the Lawrence inquiry.

Eleven years on and, for many, OBV has established itself as the, "home of black politics", lobbying at the highest level with all mainstream political parties. We have nurtured, and supported Black leaders of today and tomorrow such as David Lammy MP, Dawn Butler MP, Shahid Malik MP, Sadiq Khan MP, Adam Afiyee MP, Sayeeda Warsi, Sonika Nirwal, Gurpreet Dosanjh, Sean Baily and Wilfred Emmanuel Jones.

Today our long-term engagement programme has widened from our initial voter registration campaign that has registered many thousands to vote. We have on-going mentoring projects that cover magistracy, local government and other public bodies. We are quietly proud that directly and indirectly there are nearly 50 new black magistrates sitting in local courts around the country, defenders of the law and role models for others to follow.

We are equally proud that our innovative work in citizenship has been rolled out in more than 500 schools across the country. Here our starting point begins, not with a detailed discussion about the democratic institutions, although they are covered, but by first having a conversation about and an understanding of the dynamics of power in areas such as identity, media, fashion and music. Understanding power within topics that young men and women are familiar has proven to help them make the link more readily between power and civic society.

All my colleagues at OBV recognise the immense satisfaction of serving our communities and wider society. You won't be surprised to know that we remain impatient for long-lasting change, yet confident that what we are engaged in a process that will deliver it.