Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for the Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb by David Kushner

The Barnes & Noble Review

The Levitts didn't invent suburbia and they didn't invent mass production, but they joined the two with impeccable timing, easing the critical postwar housing shortage by building modern, affordable communities with lightning speed. The events in David Kushner's riveting book occurred in Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second Levitt development, which, like its Long Island predecessor, had a whites-only policy. During the summer of 1957, a left-wing Jewish couple, the Wechslers, quietly arranged for an African-American family to buy the house next door. What followed was a months-long campaign by a group of hostile residents to drive Daisy and Bill Myers and their young children from their home, complete with burning crosses, smashed windows, and round-the-clock harassment. The local police did little to protect the family, while William Levitt, the flashy chairman of Levitt & Sons and a national hero, ignored the controversy altogether. (Levitt, who claimed that 90 to 95 percent of whites would refuse to buy into an integrated Levittown, had once said, "We can solve the housing problem or we can solve the racial problem, but we cannot combine the two.") Kushner's fast-paced account deftly re-creates the drama, which, though largely forgotten today, received nationwide coverage as it unfolded. It is the author's good fortune that the Wechslers and Daisy Myers are still alive and kept meticulous records of their ordeal; the result is a page-turner that's rich in detail and that also illuminates Cold War politics, suburbanization, and civil rights. --Barbara Spindel

From the Publisher

The dark side of the American dream: the true story of the first African-American family to move into the iconic suburb, Levittown, PA .

In the decade after World War II , one entrepreneurial family helped thousands of people buy into the American dream of owning a home. T he Levitts—William, Alfred, and their father, Abe—pooled their talents to create storybook towns with affordable little houses. T hey laid out the welcome mat, but not to everyone. Levittown had a whites-only policy.

The events that unfolded in Levittown, PA, in the unseasonably hot summer of 1957 would rock the community. There, a white Jewish Communist family named Wechsler secretly arranged for a black family, the Myerses, to buy the pink house next door. T he explosive reaction would transform their lives, and the nation, leading to the downfall of a titan and the integration of the most famous suburb in the world. Levittown is a story of hope and fear, invention and rebellion, and the power that comes when ordinary people take an extraordinary stand. And it is as relevant today, more than fifty years later, as it was then.

Publishers Weekly

Migration to suburbia has long been an American ambition, but its allure was never stronger than in the post-WWII years, when the fantasy of a dream house played to the imagination of millions of Americans, especially returning veterans. Already waiting for many of them was a model community on the North Shore of Long Island called Levittown, the brainchild of Abraham Levitt and his sons, William and Alfred, the nation's first real estate tycoons. But Levittown came with its own set of requirements: perfectly manicured lawns, no fences and no black families. In 1957, as the Levitts-by now massively successful and nationally lauded-had already expanded to a second model city, two families challenged the segregationist policy: one, a white Jewish Communist family, secretly arranged for the other, a black family, to buy the house next door. In an entertaining round-robin format, Kushner relays each party's story in the leadup to a combustible summer when the integration of America's most famous suburb caused the downfall of a titan and transformed the nation. (Feb.)

Janet Ingraham Dwyer - Library Journal

In 1957, Bev and Lew Wechsler, activists and residents of Levittown, PA, welcomed Daisy and Bill Myers and their children to move next door. The Myers thus became the first black family to reside in Levittown, built and maintained as an explicitly "whites only" suburb. Rolling Stone contributing editor Kushner (Masters of Doom) frames the Myers's story within the rise of self-assured entrepreneur developer Bill Levitt, who built wildly successful postwar suburbs and was an unrepentant defender of racially exclusive policies. Kushner also limns the contemporary civil rights struggle but focuses on the immediate fallout of the Myers's move into Levittown: nonstop protests, near-riots, and threats from appalled residents backed by out-of-town white supremacists, which were countered by the Wechslers and other forward-thinking residents with support from local Quaker and human rights groups. Though the Myers family prevailed in the courts, and Levitt's communities would be officially integrated by 1960, the tension of that summer is still palpable in this gripping account. Timing gives this publication an additional layer of historic intrigue: in November 2008, voters in Bucks County, PA, home to Levittown, selected Barack Obama for President by an 8.5 percent margin. Recommended for all public libraries and essential for regional collections.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School

In 1957, Levittown, PA, was known as a remarkable suburb. It was built by the innovative Abe Levitt & Sons, who used the new mass-production techniques for a planned community that could be constructed quickly, included comfortable homes with state-of-the-art appliances, and was affordable for returning veterans. The covenants, however, implied that the community was for whites only, and this policy was backed up by Home Owners Loan Corporation. When Lew and Bea Wechsler, disillusioned Communists and civil rights advocates, decided to challenge this policy and help a black couple, Daisy and Bill Myers, move next door, mob violence immediately occurred, some of which was instigated by outsiders who were members of the KKK. This account centers on the background of the two families and their growing friendship as they endured vicious attacks by their neighbors and the apathetic protection of the police. It is also the story of the Levitt family: Abe, the brilliant and enterprising father; Bill, the egotistical, power-hungry, and controlling son; and his brother, Alfred, the gifted and unconventional architect. This story of a conflicted, fearful neighborhood is told against the wider background of the Civil Rights Movement and the fallout from McCarthyism. Students may know of Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges and the students of Little Rock, AR. This courageous story is also one that should be heard.-Jackie Gropman, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library System, Fairfax, VA

Kirkus Reviews

Rolling Stone and Wired contributing editor Kushner (Journalism/New York Univ.; Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, 2005, etc.) skillfully pieces together a shameful chronicle of racial discrimination during the American postwar economic boom. The child of Jewish immigrants, Abraham Levitt became a successful real-estate developer in the midst of the Great Depression. He bought land on Long Island, the new frontier of suburbia, with sons Bill (the front man) and Alfred (the designer). They developed housing efficiently and sold it affordably. In 1946, they transformed the farming community of Island Trees, Long Island, into Levittown, a self-contained development geared toward the 16 million returning veterans. Proclaiming that "an undesirable class can quickly ruin a community," Bill Levitt barred blacks from buying into the complex. This discrimination was supported by the ingrained business practices of the Home Owners Loan Corporation, which gave higher marks to homogenous communities and "redlined" bad areas. However, after the opening of a second Levittown just north of Philadelphia in 1952, events converged to challenge these policies. Civil-rights groups made integrating the new Levittown a top priority, and Jewish activists Bea and Lew Wechsler invited the African-American Myers family to move in next door at 43 Deepgreen Lane in August 1957. Over the next months, the Myerses and Wechslers endured harassment, heckling, mob violence and cross-burning. Civil-rights sympathizers clashed with anti-integration residents. A KKK-sponsored organization secured a neighboring house for meetings, complete with display of the Confederate flag. Kushner's immediate story of the trial andconviction of the racist mob's leaders occurs within a larger frame of national civil-rights upheavals, including the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the murder of Emmett Till and the integration of Little Rock Central High School. The Levittown fracas, he demonstrates, was a crucial moment in the overall struggle. A remarkable story fashioned into a dramatic narrative. Agent: Mary Ann Naples/The Creative Culture

Product Details