A Condition of “Depression”: Racism and Lead Poisoning During the Civil Rights Era and Beyond

The ongoing lead poisoning disaster in Flint, Michigan belies the reality that lead poisoning has long been an environmental disaster shaping public health and environmental space. In Chicago, public housing units built by the 1940s were wrapped up in debates about exposure to lead paint. Public housing administrators blamed the paint industry for the danger and vice-versa. Both the lead industry and housing officials would also blame inner city Black, Puerto Rican and Latina/o residents for their own leaded bodies, suggesting their suffering was the result of an inner biological inferiority that made them inherently prone to disease. By the Civil Rights era, Chicago activists were vocal about the dangerous lead that surrounded them. The Chicago Student Organization for Urban Leadership (SOUL) was formed in 1964 to combat lead poisoning among children and adults in Chicago. Drawing on the leadership style and structure of existing civil rights organizations, SOUL included both high school and college students who distributed pamphlets to residents on the dangers of lead poisoning and collected paint from the windowsills of homes and urine samples from residents to be examined by local public health departments.