FORTY YEARS ago, the starkest divide in the fight for civil rights was a color line. But the question was whether equal representation and equal opportunity were merely platitudes or the very foundation on which our government should stand.
Those of us who worked for and with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that our crusade for true equality would not end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Today, the battle continues, even in our homes, as we seek to protect our children from environmental hazards that disproportionately affect poor and minority communities.
Lead poisoning is the single greatest preventable environmental health problem facing America's children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC also estimates that more than 20 percent of African-American children up to age 6 living in older homes have elevated blood lead levels. About 85 percent of children with high blood lead levels are Medicaid-eligible, which means poor and disproportionately minority.
Like the battle for voting rights, equal access to housing and other civil rights, the battle against this scourge in our community will not be won by anything less than a full frontal assault by the federal government.
To their credit, many local and state governments are addressing this challenge.
In Baltimore, where an estimated 1,200 children have been victims of lead poisoning each year for the past decade, Mayor Martin O'Malley instituted a comprehensive, multiphase prevention program that has united city, state and federal agencies to address the problem.
In Maryland, Gov. Parris N. Glendening's administration was forceful in prosecuting landlords who ignored lead-related housing regulations. Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. needs to continue that effort and significantly increase funding. Maryland should also look at what other states are doing.
Earlier this year, Rhode Island approved landmark legislation holding landlords accountable if a child is poisoned by lead hazards on their properties. Under this law, landlords no longer can claim ignorance as a defense against liability for children's health, and those who fail to take remedial action after being notified to do so will be identified on a public database and required to post signs on their properties declaring them unsafe for small children.
This last provision is particularly important.
A study conducted by Brown University and completed in June shows that 204 landlords in Rhode Island owned housing units where children were repeatedly poisoned. Those landlords were responsible for elevating the blood lead levels of more than 2,500 children over nine years.
The nation's traditionally disenfranchised are more likely to rent: Only 44 percent of African-Americans and 43 percent of Latinos are homeowners, compared with 69 percent of non-Hispanic whites. Holding landlords accountable for maintaining habitable properties should be national policy.
The courtroom has also been used as a platform to address this problem. Lawsuits that force unscrupulous property owners to take responsibility for their crumbling buildings will protect future generations from lead hazards. Lawsuits that seek to penalize now that which was lawful a half-century ago - the sale of lead-based paint - are misguided.
The recent mistrial in Rhode Island's lawsuit against paint manufacturers reveals the ineffectiveness of litigation and demonstrates how it distracts attention from the task immediately at hand - eradicating lead hazards. The lawsuit sought to break legal ground by claiming that the presence of any lead paint in a home, even if fully intact, was a public nuisance, potentially putting thousands of Rhode Island homeowners in legal jeopardy. This case and others like it lose sight of our mission.
By the time lawsuits are concluded, no chance will remain to save today's generation. We need to remedy the problem now, and we can.
Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski has been successfully working to establish a new funding program for the 25 cities with low-income rental housing most threatened by lead hazards. It is imperative that Congress' new leadership support this legislation and that President Bush sign it into law. But even that will not be enough.
There is no place as powerful as the presidential bully pulpit from which to prevent lead hazards from dimming the potential of future generations. I call on President Bush to convene and lead a multiagency awareness, screening and remediation campaign.
The federal government should commit itself to the complete eradication of childhood lead poisoning in the next five years. Nothing but ignorance and inaction stands in the way of achieving this dream.
Benjamin L. Hooks is a former CEO and executive director of the NAACP and founding co-chair of the Children's Health Forum.