In 2016, 1,100 mainly minority residents of a low-income housing complex in East Chicago, Indiana, received a letter from the city forcibly evicting them from their homes because a high level of lead was found in the soil under their houses. The residents were given two months to move. Many could not find safe housing nearby. The site was designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site because of the large amount of toxic material on it. More than 1,300 similar sites are located throughout the United States. Over 70 million people live within three miles of one of these sites.
Lakeshore Public Media host Dee Dotson is joined by Carolyn R. Boiarsky, Ph.D. to discuss her new book Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing: Environmental Injustice, Systemic Racism and Governmental Failure. Drawing on historic sources as well as present-day interviews, Dr. Boiarsky shares the book is not just a story of victimization; it is also about empowerment and community members insisting their voices be heard. Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing records the human side of what happens when the industries responsible for polluting leave, but the residents remain. Those residents tell their stories in their own words—not just what happened to them, but how they acted in response. We should listen, not only for justice, but as a cautionary tale against repeated history.
Carolyn R. Boiarsky is an investigative reporter and academic. She began her career as Statehouse correspondent for United Press International (UPI) in 1964, one of only a few female investigative reporters in the country at that time. She went on to become a television news reporter for the West Virginia CBS affiliate WCHS-TV. She has published in the New Republic, the Progressive, and various newspaper Sunday supplements. Later she became a professor of English at Purdue University Northwest, authoring five books on teaching composition and professional writing. She also founded the Northwest Indiana Writing Project. Recently, she retired, returning to her first career as a writer with her book Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing.