'Levittown' by David Kushner

In 1957, the event immediately recognized as a watershed moment in civil rights was the attempted integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. What the black teenagers encountered -- red-faced mobs, harassment that tipped into violence, recalcitrant town bosses, police who stood by and did nothing -- were indelible images that set us on the path to dismantling segregation for good.

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

February 3, 2009