"We need to have a Stephen Lawrence moment in this area because right now mental health is in the twilight zone in the black community."
Pastor Omooba said he was "astounded" to see the "huge over representation of black people in the most secure wards" during visits to mental health hospitals across London.
"It is horrendous to see rows and rows of black people locked up in these places where we know they get treated badly because the services are institutionally racist," Lee Jasper, chair of the African Caribbean Mental Health Commission, told the London audience.
Speakers highlighted the importance of agreeing on a strategy to address the widespread discrimination which has led to patients from African Caribbean communities being more likely to be forcibly restrained, placed in seclusion, misdiagnosed, and over medicated than any other ethnic group.
"This is a political issue and the developments we have seen with the introduction of the new Mental Health Act and the findings of the latest census make it clear that things will only change through political pressure," academic and consultant psychiatrist professor Suman Fernando said.
Professor Fernando publicly refused an OBE for his work in mental health this year in protest over the racist provisions within the 2007 Mental Health Act.
He warned the audience: "The system has great problems of racism, so don't just leave your friend or family to the system expecting them to do the best for them because they won't."
He pointed to the latest census which showed that black patients are more likely to be restrained than any other ethnic group.
2008 will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of young black man, David Bennett, in custody after a team of up to five nurses held him face down for almost half an hour.
"A real political commitment is needed from the Government if we want to avoid seeing other families lose their loved one in such horrific ways," Matilda MacAttram director of Black Mental Health UK said.
