Millions of people in America today are living with lead poisoning or complications from chronic lead exposure. Lead-based products — especially paint — are commonplace in houses built before the 1970s, and prolonged exposure can have detrimental effects on health, brain development, and cognitive functioning. A child with lead poisoning is more likely than their peers to struggle academically, experience behavioral issues, and even have interactions with the criminal justice system. Yet despite its known risks, the use of lead-based paint in American homes persisted for more than 50 years after it was banned by the League of Nations in 1922.

In cities like Baltimore, Maryland, where the history of lead paint coincides with a history of racially discriminatory housing policies, the ongoing epidemic of lead poisoning has had a lopsided effect on black communities and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. The growing awareness of lead's developmental impacts have created a harmful stigma for lead poisoning survivors, and a destructive financial industry has emerged to prey on those who have been awarded legal settlements.

Hiding in the Walls offers a look inside the unseen landscape of lead poisoning in America, re-contextualizing the issue as not merely a symptom but a root cause of many cyclical issues experienced by impoverished communities. It unwinds the fraught history of lead's government-mandated use in low-income housing, how lead poisoning became an acceptable norm in urban America, and follows the adult survivors who are on a mission to reclaim the narrative.