A new association that will speak for the city's black community has sprouted after taking root a year ago.

The African Canadian Action Congress — formed to deal with issues common to all of the various ethnic and black groups in Hamilton — took flight Thursday night with its official launch and inaugural meeting.

Longtime activist and former university professor Gary Warner and McMaster sociology student Gabriela Roberts were to lead a discussion on creating a strong and united black community.

The idea behind the congress is not to take over the work of the many individual associations, but to have them work collaboratively on issues affecting them all, says Evelyn Myrie, interim congress co-chair.

"We're trying to bring a diverse group of people around the table. There are a number of cultural organizations … but we see a gap in a voice around social-political issues affecting our community," Myrie said.

Those issues include racism and policing, she added.

"We want to have an action-oriented group."

The congress grew out of an idea by Comfort Afari, Hamilton Ghana Association president and now congress co-chair along with Myrie.

"I realized there were a lot of black, African and Caribbean associations in Hamilton and all of us were focusing on our own ethnic community and on cultural promotion," Afari said. "But there was no one group representing all of us."

So a year ago, Afari invited 25 black leaders to her home for dinner to get to know each other — and to see if they had any common themes. They ended up brainstorming and agreeing to form a common body, she said.

"We will all continue to maintain our own groups, but we're also going one step forward with one group to represent everyone in dealing with our common issues like racism and the social issues that affect black people," Afari said.

"For everything to come together today for the launch, it's like a dream come true," she said before the inaugural meeting at the Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association offices on King Street.

"We are all Hamiltonians and we'd love to play a role in making Hamilton the great city it is and to make sure everyone is included."

Leo Nupolu Johnson, interim secretary, said it was "pretty exciting at this point we can go public." Johnson is the founder of the charity Empowerment Squared working on sustainable change such as academic mentoring of newcomer and less privileged youth in Hamilton and creating the first public library in Liberia.

A core group of the congress has done a lot of work already to avoid duplicating services and figuring out how to engage the public to share ideas, Johnson said.

"We're an overarching body that can support the various black community organizations in a more effective way."

The congress has already met with the province's police oversight review panel and the anti-racism directorate.

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Myrie says without one body like the congress in Hamilton, "there's no cohesive voice that speaks on issues affecting the black community. This will fill the gap."

The interim congress executive includes Dr. Alez Dauphin, Gary Warner and Gasbia Nyoungkam.