Lead prevention program April 20
By Don Fitz
For the St. Louis American
In 1969, Ivory Perry realized the connections between windows and lead poisoning. Perry told his biographer, George Lipsitz, “Most poor people don’t have air conditioning, and they raise the windows in the summertime, and most of the little kids put their mouths on the windowsills.”
With support from the scientist and environmental activist Barry Commoner, in 1970 Perry was able to persuade the St. Louis Board of Aldermen to pass legislation aimed at forcing landlords to detoxify rental property.
This pioneer will be honored by the Gateway Green Alliance at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 20 at the Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar Blvd. As part of Earth Week, the Greens will host a forum to pay tribute to Perry and more recent efforts at lead poisoning prevention.
Perry had faced conflicts in each part of his life that helped prepare him for what was ahead. Born to sharecropper parents in 1930, Perry grew up in rural Arkansas and later moved to Pine Bluff. Though his family lived near civil rights activities, they did not participate in them.
The racism that Perry experienced as a teenager in Arkansas meant that he was not surprised to serve in a segregated unit when he joined the U.S. Army in 1948. But toward the end of his time in Korea, he found racism in the military intolerable and began to object to it.
Perry came to St. Louis in 1954 and was drawn into civil rights protests within a few years. When the extensive picketing for jobs at Jefferson Bank began in 1963, he became one of the most reliable activists on the picket line. Perry was often in the press when he was arrested for actions such as lying in front of cars.
Protests in the 1960s objected to the exclusion of blacks from American life – from jobs, from voting, from being served at lunch counters. But when Perry became an employee of the Human Development Corporation in the late 1960s, he faced a different aspect of racial injustice: black people being crowded into substandard housing. Perry organized for tenant rights, including the rent strike of 1969.
While visiting renters in their homes, Perry noticed recurring health problems among children. He discovered that it could be traced to lead in the paint of old homes. With lead, Perry was the person who drew attention to a major problem. By the end of the decade, problems such as these would become known as “environmental racism.”
The “Ivory Perry and the Struggle for a Lead Free St. Louis” hosted by the Gateway Greens next Thursday, April 20 will include:
* George Lipsitz, Department of Black Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and author of Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition, will describe pioneering work done by Perry to address lead poisoning and link it to the Civil Rights Movement.
* Daniel Berg, M.D., founder of Health and Environmental Justice, St. Louis, will describe health effects of lead, especially at low levels, that need to be addressed in a comprehensive program.
* Kathleen Logan-Smith, board member of Health and Environmental Justice, St. Louis, will discuss issues with lead poisoning prevention programs in the city of St. Louis.
* Wm. Lacy Clay, U.S. Congressman, will discuss federal lead initiatives as they relate to Missouri and St. Louis.
* Patrick Dougherty, Missouri Senate, will discuss Missouri lead initiatives as they relate to federal and local programs.
* Irene J. Smith, former alderwoman, will discuss approaches to working with the city of St. Louis on lead poisoning prevention.
Decades after the legislation inspired by Perry, St. Louis has what must be recognized as a lead epidemic. Childhood lead poisoning in St. Louis is six times the national average. The prevalence rate for black children is 28.8 percent; for white children it is 16.5 percent.
On April 20, public health advocates will honor Ivory Perry by continuing his work. The forum will explore the approach of removing lead from homes in order to prevent children from being poisoned. Call (314) 727-8554 for more information or visit www.gateway-greens.org
