Get the Lead Out: Environmental Politics in 1970s St. Louis.

During the early 1970s, residents of St. Louis's poorest African American neighborhoods mounted a spirited campaign to get city politicians and public health officials to address the epidemic of childhood lead paint poisoning in their communities. This activism was directly connected to aspects of the civil rights and black power movements, but it was also a response to the decline of the city's physical space. Housing discrimination, disinvestment, deindustrialization, and population loss forced many poor black residents to live in the city's rapidly decaying housing stock. Activists and residents seized on childhood lead poisoning, caused by the overwhelming use of lead paint, as a tangible manifestation of discrimination and injustice. Although the success of this activism was limited--it raised awareness but did not solve the core problem of inadequate housing--the St. Louis story is an important example of postwar urban environmentalism. During the 1960s and 1970s, poor and working-class urbanites across the country engaged in similar activism to address the physical problems of urban decline. This activism was an important part of the early environmental movement and is the precursor to what would become known as environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]