New Jersey's Willingboro Township has renamed the Levitt Parkway as Veterans Parkway in a tribute to those who served in the nation’s military and rebuking a piece of institutional racism in the township’s past.
On Friday morning, the township held a renaming ceremony for the parkway. Originally, the parkway was named after developer William J. Levitt, who built and founded a community within Willingboro’s bounds and named it Levittown, after himself.
Levitt and the community’s private developers envisioned Levittown as an all-white enclave and developers refused to sell homes to Black families or allow Black residents. The Levittown in Willingboro was the third community Levitt built and named after himself. Willingboro even changed its name to Levittown for four years, until 1963. The communities — including one in Bucks County — all had similar layouts and houses with the same architecture.
