Levittown

by David Kushner

  An anonymous letter sent to their house after the cross burning said as much. The cross was “put there,” the letter read, “to let you know that, although the crowds have diminished, the feelings against you have not, nor will ever be. We are members of an organization that was born in the south. It is legal and it is chartered. Need I say more? We are not an organization of terror as is commonly stated, but rather one with ideals which we believe are just and right. We are American citizens, not ‘Commies’ or ‘riff-raff’ and we are fighting and will continue to fight for what we believe to be our constitutional right . . . Think long—and think carefully—Mr. W. pull out while you can.” It was signed “a citizen born in the U.S.A. Member of a legal charted organization. R.E./The south.”

  As word of the cross burning spread through the Myerses’ supporters, so did the fear. One morning, Bea was outside when her neighbor and early Levittown friend Marcia Kasman came running up the driveway crying. Kasman fell into Bea’s arms, sobbing in terror. The Kasmans like others had been supporting the Wechslers and Myerses for weeks now, but the attacks of the mob were wearing them down. She told Bea how she feared for the safety of her children. As Bea comforted her, the two appreciated how, amid all the chaos, their children were exhibiting amazing strength.

  The Kasman children, Howard and Sandy, had been friendly with both Nick and Katy and the Myers boys, William and Stephen (whom Bill and Daisy had brought back from York to stay with them in Levittown). Howard was turning nine, and he wanted to invite the young brothers to his birthday party so that they would feel included too. A story in the New York Post headlined TWO LONELY LITTLE BOYS IN LEVITTOWN described their plight, pushing tricycles and wagons alone. “William is big for his age, with large, dark sparkling eyes,” the reporter wrote. “He and Stephen look like their mother. They joke with their father, painting the garage. ‘They’re too young to know what’s going on,’ the father says.” But Bill Myers also admitted that the pressure was getting to them. “We’ve had some weak moments,” he said, this was “a war of nerves.”

  No matter how young and innocent they were, the children were not immune to the same sort of abuse brought against their parents. When Howard Kasman’s two best friends found out he’d invited the Myers boys, they told him sadly that their parents wouldn’t let them attend. Howard didn’t know what to do. “This is your party,” his mother told him, “and this is a tough decision, but you are the only who can make it.”

  Howard didn’t back down, but his friends’ parents wouldn’t either. William and Stephen came to the party, but Howard’s two friends didn’t. When the party was through, Howard brought two plates of birthday cake to his friends. As Lew later noted, “That superb nine-year-old diplomat had arranged the Myers boys’ first Levittown social function, and retained his two best friends, despite their parents’ backward views.”

  The Myers and Wechsler children were as heroic as their pals. Monday, September 9, was Katy Wechsler’s fourteenth birthday, and she had asked friends over to her house after school that afternoon to celebrate. There had already been good news. That day Congress passed the first civil rights act since Reconstruction, paving the way for the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

  But on Deepgreen Lane, justice still seemed far away. As the children played birthday games outside that afternoon, a car slowly rolled up the street until it came to a stop. Katy looked up to see a mountainous man with a flattop sneering out the window: James Newell. “You bunch of nigger lovers!” he yelled at the teens, then drove off.

  On the heels of this incident and the brewing storm at Little Rock Central High, Bea and Lew were more concerned than ever about Nick’s plan to work as a crossing guard on the first day of school. Even more, they discovered that Nick had been assigned as a pupil in the class of none other than Donald Burton—the first African-American teacher in town. Reporters from the New York Times, the New York Post, and other media had come to observe opening day to see if a Little Rock–like riot would occur.

  On the morning of September 16, Nick proudly strapped on his crossing-guard badge and said good-bye to his parents. Then, on his own accord, he walked over to the Myerses’ home and knocked on the door. He told them he would gladly escort William to school. Together, the two boys walked through the street, making their way down Deepgreen Lane. They heard the voices of parents and children taunting them as they made it down the road past the reporters and patrolling police cars.

  There were no riots that day at school after all. “I expected some antagonism,” Burton told a reporter, “but there wasn’t any. I’m a sensitive person and I would have felt it if it were there.” African-American children from Bloomsdale Gardens played hand in hand with white Levittown kids in the playground. On the way home, however, the taunts came again. When Bea and Lew heard Nick’s story, they asked Katy if anyone was messing with her at junior high school. Katy replied, “They wouldn’t dare!” This was the same tough girl, after all, who had beaten up the bully when he’d tried to hurt her little brother. And she wasn’t going to back down now.

  Neither were the Myers boys. One day at kindergarten, William was sitting quietly in his seat as a white boy leaned over to taunt him: “You’re black! You’re black!”

  William eyed him calmly. “I’m not black, I’m brown, don’t you know the difference?” He then reached into his drawer and took out two crayons—one black, one brown. Slowly, he drew a brown line down the page, then a black one next to it. Then he handed the paper to the white boy, who stared at it blankly.

  With the pressure mounting, Bea and Lew decided it was time for a break. They took up their friends’ offer of a night out at a special restaurant in Camden, New Jersey, called the Pub. The waiter brought them a rum-and-fruit drink in a half pineapple shell called a Missionary’s Revenge. They ate delicious food from a charcoal-heated cart and talked late into the night, smoking the complimentary cigars that came at the end of the meal. Life, for this night, felt normal again.

  Shortly thereafter, they got a call from other close friends in Schenectady, New York, who urged them to take a break from the standoff for their sake and the kids’. “You just have to get away for a few days,” the friends said. “All of you come here for a long weekend.” Bea and Lew agreed and left on September 20 for a therapeutic weekend relaxing and eating a sumptuous dinner.

  But reality greeted them the moment they came home to Levittown on Sunday afternoon, September 22. The phone was ringing as they opened the front door. When they picked it up, their friend and neighbor Peter Von Blum was on the line, frantic. That morning at four A.M., Von Blum said, he and his wife, Selma, were sleeping when they heard explosions outside their home. They raced outside to find a cross burning in their front yard. The makeshift wood cross, like the one that had been found on the Wechslers’ lot, had been fitted with blank cartridges designed to fire in the heat.

  Once again, the Myerses and Wechslers had a good hunch who was behind it. That day in the Levittown Times, in fact, an ad appeared signed by Newell. The ad solicited members for the group he chaired, the Levittown Betterment Association, and read: “The L.B.A. objectives are to promote the general welfare and secure for the community the former status of limitations by peaceful means. The L.B.A. has not, does not, and will not advocate violence in any form. Ours is not hate which we feel but one of encroachment upon our rights as a limited community. Those who would question the desire of the L.B.A. labor under a false, biased, and derogatory tale [by those] bating our influence who seek to deny and disparage our heritage. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. We do not propose to do likewise. From this we take our stand.”

  That afternoon, the Wechslers and Myerses saw exactly what kind of stand Newell and his group had decided to take. They heard the sound of a bugle coming from the empty house on 30 Darkleaf Lane. How could there be more mob members outside, they wondered, when the cops were still supposedly guarding their homes? The Wechslers a
nd Myerses had feared who might take over the house and tip the balance of the neighborhood. As they rushed outside, their worst nightmare had come true.

  The home had been transformed into a clubhouse. Men and women, disorderly and drunk, cavorted on the lawn. Noticing the attention of the Myerses, the women hoisted up their dresses, revealing their snow-white legs with a laugh. A loudspeaker in the window blasted the song “Dixie.” An American flag flapped on the roof. Beside it flew a Confederate flag.

  The Myerses and Wechslers recognized in horror the familiar faces of their tormentors, including Newell, and even the mailman who had started the riot after he’d delivered the first letter to Daisy Myers on that August day. Outside, the caretaker of the house, Eldred Williams, walked his black dog up and down the yard. He had renamed the pet in honor of this day. “Here, Nigger,” he called to the dog, “come here you, Nigger.” The neighbors had arrived.

  Fifteen

  DANDELIONS AND BAYONETS

  ABE LEVITT HATED weeds. Weeds were an imperfection on his perfectly produced lawns. During his working years at Levitt & Sons, the legacy of the “vice president of grass seed” loomed large across the country. As one sociologist put it, Abe was “the man chiefly responsible [for inventing] the mass produced landscape to go along with its ready-built housing.” Abe had created a host of grass-cutting rules. He provided free fertilization and reseeding to keep Levittown lawns green and weed-free. It wasn’t just ego, it was a moral imperative.

  “This is the first spring in Levittown. We want to present to the nation a model community in every respect,” he said in 1948. And that model started with the Levittowners: “A fine carpet of green grass stamps the inhabitants as good neighbors, as desirable citizens.” You could tell a lot about a community by the state of its lawns, he believed. “No single feature of a suburban residential community contributes as much to the charm and beauty of the individual home and locality as a well-kept lawn,” he once wrote. Or, as he liked to say, “Grass is the very foundation of life.”

  But in September 1957, the grass around Levittown was dead. Dandelions shot from the dry, brown earth like dust balls. The record-breaking drought of the summer had taken its toll. The Levittowners were either losing their battle to the weeds or had simply stopped caring enough to try to win. As one reporter put it that month, the dandelions and other weeds were “running wild” and violating the town ordinances. With Abe out of the picture and Bill off building his empire, no one was left to enforce the rules. One local borough tried to take matters into its own hands, launching a plan called Operation Weed Removal to restore the community to its original splendor.

  Daisy Myers took up the charge on her own. She was determined to weed her lawn. But as she walked outside, a more terrible scourge awaited her. Behind her house, she saw the rebel flag flapping over the roof of what had been dubbed the Confederate House. The house was quiet now. As soon as Daisy started pulling weeds from the flower bed, however, she heard the telephone ring inside. Putting down her things, she went in to answer it.

  “Hello?” She said, but the caller hung up.

  Daisy returned to her work, only to hear the phone ring again. Once more, Daisy put down her things and went in to answer it. This time, a woman at the other end said, “There’s no point to pulling weeds because you won’t be here that long.” Then the line went dead.

  Daisy glanced furtively outside her window. She was being watched. But she would not be swayed. She went right back outside and put on her gloves and began pulling out dandelions. The phone rang again. Daisy went back to pick it up, but no one was there. The routine kept happening—outside, inside, ring and hang up. The mob was tormenting her, testing her will. But, she resolved more than ever, they would not break her. The next time her phone rang, she picked up the receiver and left it off the line. Then she put back on her gloves and got back to work.

  Bill Myers wanted more protection. Outraged and fearful for his family, he called the police. At the precinct, Bristol Township police chief Stewart told him he could do nothing because the township couldn’t afford to provide “round-the-clock” protection. Bill pleaded but was turned away.

  While Stewart declined Myers’s plea, other cops felt conflicted. A sergeant named Ernest F. Nuskey felt his stomach turn as the harassment of the Myerses and Wechslers continued without the police’s intervention. Nuskey had been on the force for six years and acted as chief before Stewart’s arrival. He reeled because the police weren’t doing more to help the families on Deepgreen Lane. But what, he wondered, could he do?

  By the following Monday morning, the Myerses and the Wechslers had had enough. Daisy, Bill, Bea, Lew, Selma Von Blum (who had had a cross burned on her and her husband Peter’s lawn weeks before), and Thomas Colgan of the Friends Service Association decided to drive up to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to tell Attorney General Thomas McBride that they wanted the state to step in and end this nightmare. Newell and his racist mob had long talked about their alleged desire to seek “legal means” to boot the Myerses from Levittown, but where was the law for them? Crosses burned and Confederate flags waved in plain view of the police. Where was the peace for the victims of this harassment?

  As lifelong activists, Bea and Lew had been in sociopolitical causes long enough to know how to play this game. On the drive up they hatched a plan for how to get leverage. They said that if the state would not intervene, then they would pack up and leave Levittown once and for all. It was a calculated threat directed against the Pennsylvania government. Bea and Lew had a hunch that there wouldn’t be any worse press for these liberal leaders than to have it be known that racists were successfully driving taxpaying citizens from their homes.

  As they drove up together, the Wechslers and Myerses reflected on the events of the past month. This had not been what any of them had anticipated. The Myerses were simply looking for a good home, but never wanted to change the world. The Wechslers had always wanted to change the world, but had never been in a position to have such a chance. Now both families were cast in this drama in the most unlikely of places together. They realized that their personal quests, their desires for a home and for change, were intertwined with the greater good. The Levitts had built and sold the dream of the model town to America, but now these neighbors from different backgrounds had the opportunity to make Levittown a real model town for all.

  As they arrived at and entered the state building together, Colgan saw Attorney General McBride down the hall. Colgan approached him and explained they had traveled up from Levittown to tell him about the crisis they were facing. The Wechslers sat watching with a sense of relief. McBride, they knew, was a good man. Not long before when he was a practicing attorney, McBride had gone out on a limb to become chief counsel to a group of Communist Party leaders who were under arrest for their activities. Bea and Lew were sure he would now do the right thing too.

  When Colgan came back, he told the group that McBride would see them to discuss matters. But when Bea and Lew stood to join the group, Colgan had to stop them. What’s going on? they wanted to know.

  With a downcast gaze, Colgan sadly explained that McBride did not want the Wechslers to come inside. Bea and Lew were aghast. Why not? Colgan told them what he said McBride had told him: “Because I’ve heard that they are Communists, and it’s best not to get that issue involved.”

  Bea and Lew felt crushed. McCarthyism still haunted them, and now even this man whom they considered liberal and courageous had succumbed to such fears too. Were their efforts for nothing? What was happening to the world around them? They had taken a stand and risked their lives, had a cross burned on their lawn, and yet they were being treated like criminals. “Are we now more dangerous than the leaders of the Communist Party?” they asked themselves, as they watched the rest of the group follow McBride down the hall. “That’s certainly what it seems.”

  By the time the Wechslers arrived back alone in Levittown, they didn’t have reason to be encouraged. The Confe
derate House was still flying its flags, and blasting African-American spirituals from loudspeakers. The bugle playing continued, and dozens of men and women were now boisterously cavorting on the dead brown lawn. Williams seized upon the moment to walk his dog Nigger up and down the property line as the Wechslers watched. “Come here, Nigger,” he drawled, “good boy.”

  Just as Bea and Lew were about to lose hope, they heard a siren outside. At four P.M., a state police guard pulled up by the house. The plea to McBride had worked. As McBride later informed a reporter, he had spoken with the state police after the visit from the Myerses and others and suggested that the police resume a twenty-four-hour watch. As Bill Myers himself said upon returning home that evening, the state police “are here to do the job the local police did not do.”

  There was just one problem. The state police had no impact on the harassment from next door. Despite the cops parked along the streets, the rabble-rousers in the Confederate House only grew more obnoxious as night fell on Deepgreen Lane—and the police did nothing to stop them. At one point, Williams piled with friends into his gray station wagon with the Confederate flag in the window and led a caravan of cars up and down the streets alongside the Myerses’ and Wechslers’ homes. Williams’s cohort Howard Bentcliff positioned himself in one of the parked cars, and Daisy saw him scribbling down the license-plate numbers of her friends’ cars when they came for a visit. What retribution, she feared, did he have in mind?