Lingering stench of racism

Dear Readers, Levittown, New York, is a lovely burgh on Long Island; its “twin,” Levittown, Pennsylvania, is just across the border from Trenton, New Jersey, a few miles north of Philadelphia.  Each is the essence of how 50,000 residents can enjoy middle-class suburban America, descendants of brave warriors who fought in World War II.  They are each “planned” communities, engineered for families to experience bucolic life.

They are also stark examples of post-war racially prejudiced social engineering.  One of our first racially desegregated major institutions in America was the military.  Before Jackie Robinson, we had Harry Truman’s edict of racial inclusion to the Defense Department.  In this sense, they were a step backward, while we were pursuing the dream of equality.

Federally funded public works were one of the great initiatives to build our way out of the Depression.  Thanks to emigration from the Black Belt in the South and the influx of immigrants from the upheaval in Europe, our cities underwent drastic and sudden changes.  Our housing stock creaked and groaned under the weight of the population explosion and we needed to rebuild and expand. 

Which we did.  This even led to enormous structural changes which carried over into the Eisenhower Administration and the undertaking to build the economic powerhouse of the interstate highways – purportedly, at the behest of the Defense Department to facilitate transit of military hardware in the event of another war.  A shining example of American ingenuity and doggedness.

There was a dark undercurrent to all this construction.  Public works were in the hands of racists like Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago and Robert Moses in New York.  The play (and movie starring Sydney Poitier as an angry young black man) “A Raisin in the Sun” is about black frustration with racist housing practices on the South Side of Chicago.

Chicago’s experience was that expressways were built to build multilane barriers to keep the races separated (as railway tracks had previously been used) and eminent domain to take land from black families.  In the liberal enclave of Hyde Park on the south side (yes, where Barack Obama lives and his library is being built), the University of Chicago used redevelopment funds to gobble up land and bulldoze a vibrant jazz and arts community.  

Robert Moses was the worst.  Not only did he repeat the example of using expressways to divide the races, but he also used things like pools to try and keep “undesirables” out of white communities.  He was an unelected government bureaucrat who wielded enormous, unchecked power and could not be challenged for decades.

Land is generational wealth.  And, for decades, even in the supposedly less racist North, black families were barred from owning (even renting) real estate through restrictive covenants and redlining built into deeds.  In the law, we call this “de jure” racism, where the law itself makes racism legal. 

In 1948, the United States Supreme Court ruled these restrictive covenants unconstitutional; this did not stop the practice.  “Redlining,” or the practice of not lending to people of color in white communities, remained common until the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968.  Yet, even today, nonwhite communities are not funded and bear the brunt of pollution and poverty.

Back to our idyllic Levittowns.  Post-WWII, we had the wonderful idea to reward our veterans by building whole towns with special government incentives for them and their families.  Our returning heroes would have a welcoming community to return to civil life as a thank you for their sacrifice.  Noble concept.  Except that every home in Levittown had a restrictive covenant to prohibit “Negroes” from ever owning the home.  Hence, you had two (2) sets of brand-new towns that were “whitewashed.”

You can imagine the damage already done to generations of residents in the Levittowns.  On Long Island, as late as 2010, residents of Levittown were overwhelmingly (88%) white; in Pennsylvania, in 2000, Levittown was comprised of nearly 95% white occupants, by 2010, the figure was nearly 88%.  Today, less than 2% of Levittown, New York’s population (682 residents) is classified as Black.  Levittown is more racially diverse, its black population is just under 4%.

In today’s America, words like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are dirty words.  We are striking them from government websites because they are so repulsive.  This campaign is short-sighted.  The twin Levittown communities are echoes of de jure racism and symbols of the scars we still bear as a society.

Warner Robins attorney Jim Rockefeller is the former Chief Assistant District Attorney for Houston County, and a former Assistant State Attorney in Miami.  Owner of Rockefeller Law Center, Jim has been in private practice since 2000.  E-mail your comments or confidential legal questions to ajr@rockefellerlawcenter.com.