Levittown
Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb
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Levittown
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Narrated by:
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Tavia Gilbert
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By:
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David Kushner
About this listen
The dark side of the American dream: the true story of the first African-American family to move into the iconic suburb, Levittown, Pennsylvania.
In the decade after World War II, one entrepreneurial family helped thousands of people buy into the American dream of owning a home: The Levitts. William, Alfred, and their father, Abe, pooled their talents to create storybook towns with affordable little houses. They laid out the welcome mat - but not to everyone. Levittown had a Whites-only policy.
The events that unfolded in Levittown, Pennsylvania, 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.
The 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 50 years later, as it was then.
©2009 David Kushner (P)2010 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Tavia Gilbert rises to the occasion with her reading of David Kushner’s Levittown. The cast of characters in this book runs from the well-known voice of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to anonymous, race-baiting residents of Levittown, PA, and scared adolescents on a witness stand. Gilbert gives voice and personality to the four individuals - two married couples - who rose from obscurity to fight a public battle and right a grievous wrong.
After World War II, thousands of veterans returned home to a massive housing shortage. Into that breach stepped Abraham Levitt and his two sons, the brash and boastful William and the quiet but equally ambitious Alfred. Levitt and sons envisioned a community of affordable homes, made so by taking advantage of assembly-line techniques perfected during wartime. The Levitts were prescient enough to create, own, and control most of the pre-fabricated housing elements from start to finish. It was a winning situation both for the Levitt men, who personified self-made American success, and for the revered, heroic vets who could, courtesy of the Levitts, also have a piece of the American Dream. Except for one thing: home ownership within Levittown was open to whites only.
Gilbert voices the quiet strength and resolute determination of the two couples who became the center of a cataclysmic struggle in America’s perfect community. Lew and Bea Wechsler, a Jewish - and Communist - couple from New York City, bought a small home in Levittown in search of more space and good schools for their two children. Bill and Daisy Myers, a college-educated African American couple with three young children - Bill was also a veteran - just wanted what the Wechslers and other Levittown homeowners had: their piece of the American Dream.
Trouble erupted as soon as the Myers family bought the home next door to their friends the Wechslers, whom they had met through their Civil Rights work. The racists bait the Myers and Wechsler families, the Wechslers become marginalized because of their work with the Communist Party, and the Myerses begin to doubt the wisdom of buying a home in Levittown. Gilbert’s performance allows listeners to become completely caught up in the experience. She deftly moves from the concern of Daisy Myers for her three children to the obnoxious, imperious James E. Newell, Jr., the self-anointed leader of the protesting mob. Gilbert so clearly captures the insulting and unrelenting racism of Eldred Williams, the leader of a KKK fringe group, that you will get chills when hearing the cruel taunts and verbal assaults directed at Daisy as she simply tries to do some backyard gardening.
Supporters implore law enforcement and the legal system to come to the aid of the Myers and the Wechslers. Blustery megalomaniac Bill Levitt continues to stand strong in defense of his policy of building all-white communities. Descriptions of the rowdy, destructive mobs, the burning of crosses, and the cars filled with Confederate flag-waving racists allows Gilbert to use her vocal talents in the presentation of this gripping chapter of the Civil Rights struggle.
The book is a compelling reminder of battles fought by ordinary people simply to defend their legal rights. It is a testament to the courage of the citizens who stepped up to be the first to challenge unfair practices and of the bravery of their supporters. Listeners will not soon forget the voices in Levittown. --Carole Chouinard
Critic reviews
"In Levittown, a vigorous and often surprising narrative, David Kushner journeys into the racially charged heart of what newspapers once trumpeted as 'the most perfectly planned community in America.' The core of Mr. Kushner's story focuses on the campaign to desegregate Levittown, Pa., in 1957. He deftly spliced together the experiences of two families at the center of what became a terrifying ordeal." (Wall Street Journal)
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Long Hot Summer
- By Roy on 08-01-10
By: Bruce Watson
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The Mayor of Castro Street
- The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
- By: Randy Shilts
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
Known as The Mayor of Castro Street even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent historical perspective of an activist.
- By Chris on 04-14-15
By: Randy Shilts
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Blood Done Sign My Name
- A True Story
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 143
On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and Black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This Is A Very Good Book
- By Caleb on 03-22-05
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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Arc of Justice
- A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
- By: Kevin Boyle
- Narrated by: Lizan Mitchell
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 303
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 227
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 224
The grandson of a slave, Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family to an all-white Detroit neighborhood in 1925. When his neighbors attempted to drive him out, Sweet defended himself, resulting in the death of a white man and a murder trial for Sweet. There followed one of the most important (and shockingly unknown) cases in Civil Rights history. Also caught up in the intense courtroom drama were legal giant Clarence Darrow and the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
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4 out of 5 stars
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Gripping narrative
- By Chris on 04-13-09
By: Kevin Boyle
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A Mighty Long Way
- My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School
- By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, Lisa Frazier Page, Bill Clinton - foreword
- Narrated by: Carlotta Walls LaNier
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
When 14-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other Black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine”, as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By SWF in Minneapolis on 04-27-24
By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, and others
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High-Risers
- Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers and a population of 20,000 - all of it packed onto just 70 acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource - it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cabrini was my home
- By George Dorsey on 10-13-20
By: Ben Austen
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Freedom Summer
- The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy
- By: Bruce Watson
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 128
In the summer of 1964, with the civil rights movement stalled, seven hundred college students descended on Mississippi to register black voters, teach in Freedom Schools, and live in sharecroppers' shacks. But by the time their first night in the state had ended, three volunteers were dead, black churches had burned, and America had a new definition of freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Long Hot Summer
- By Roy on 08-01-10
By: Bruce Watson
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The Mayor of Castro Street
- The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
- By: Randy Shilts
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
Known as The Mayor of Castro Street even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent historical perspective of an activist.
- By Chris on 04-14-15
By: Randy Shilts
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Blood Done Sign My Name
- A True Story
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 143
On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and Black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This Is A Very Good Book
- By Caleb on 03-22-05
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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Once in a Great City
- A Detroit Story
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 157
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
It's 1963, and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America. It was the American auto makers' best year; the revolution in music and politics was underway. Walter Reuther's UAW had helped lift the middle class. Once in a Great City shows that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Yet so much of what Detroit gave America lasts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Jordanel on 01-02-16
By: David Maraniss
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A Few Red Drops
- The Chicago Race Riot of 1919
- By: Claire Hartfield
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book!
- By Eric Leafblad on 06-03-18
By: Claire Hartfield
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You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
- A Personal History of Our Times
- By: Howard Zinn
- Narrated by: David Strathairn
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 250
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 228
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Story5 out of 5 stars 227
Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, tells his personal stories about more than 30 years of fighting for social change, from teaching at Spelman College to recent protests against war. A former bombardier in World War II, Zinn emerged in the civil rights movement as a powerful voice for justice. Although he's a fierce critic, he gives us reason to hope that by learning from history and engaging politically, we can make a difference in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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mind blowing
- By WILLIAM on 11-27-19
By: Howard Zinn
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Claudette Colvin
- Twice Toward Justice
- By: Phillip Hoose
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
On March 2, 1955, a slim, bespectacled teenager refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Mont-gomery, Alabama. Shouting "It's my constitutional right!" as police dragged her off to jail, Claudette Colvin decided she'd had enough of the Jim Crow segregation laws that had angered and puzzled her since she was a young child.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The funny yet touching story of women leders!
- By Talia on 02-06-12
By: Phillip Hoose
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The Blood of Emmett Till
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 510
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 441
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 439
Mississippi, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tough read. Rest in Peace Emmit. We are so sorry!
- By Melanie B on 09-16-18
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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Raven
- The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People
- By: Tim Reiterman
- Narrated by: Mitch Horowitz
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 593
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 531
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 527
Tim Reiterman's Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award-winning work explores the ideals gone wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a very thoroughly written book!
- By Traci P. on 04-22-17
By: Tim Reiterman
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Kennedy and King
- The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights
- By: Steven Levingston
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 19 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story5 out of 5 stars 73
A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick. Kennedy and King traces the emergence of two of the 20th century's greatest leaders, their powerful impact on each other, and on the shape of the civil rights battle between 1960 and 1963. These two men from starkly different worlds profoundly influenced each other's personal development. Kennedy's hesitation on civil rights spurred King to greater acts of courage, and King inspired Kennedy to finally make a moral commitment to equality.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Voices Too Much
- By drewdpeabody on 10-17-17
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While the World Watched
- A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Carolyn Maull McKinstry
- Narrated by: Felicia Bullock
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story5 out of 5 stars 68
Fifteen-year-old Carolyn Maull McKinstry was just a few feet away when the Klan - planted bomb that killed four of her friends exploded in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was one of the seminal moments in the Civil Rights movement, a sad day in American history…and the turning point in a young girl's life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Look Back and Live With Greater Understanding
- By jerrie Will on 05-07-21
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,483
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,277
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,272
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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Dallas 1963
- By: Bill Minutaglio, Steven L. Davis
- Narrated by: Bill Minutaglio, Tony Messano, Steven L. Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered.
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4 out of 5 stars
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American lunacy, listenable as it gets
- By Philo on 10-14-17
By: Bill Minutaglio, and others
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The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 931
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 798
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Story4 out of 5 stars 804
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
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Good Day!
- The Paul Harvey Story
- By: Paul J. Batura
- Narrated by: Paul J. Batura
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 234
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 188
In Good Day!: The Paul Harvey Story, author Paul J. Batura follows the remarkable life of one of the founding fathers of the news media. Paul Harvey started his career during the Great Depression and narrated America's story day by day, through wars and peace, the threat of communism and the crumbling of old colonial powers, consumer booms and eventual busts.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Should have been better
- By Royce Brown on 12-21-09
By: Paul J. Batura