Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach, which is currently owned by L.A. County, may be returned to the descendants of the Bruce family to provide them with compensation for the seizing of the property nearly 100 years ago, according to L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn.
Willa and Charles Bruce founded Bruce’s Beach in 1912, and it became a popular vacation spot for Black families. In 1924, city officials seized the property under eminent domain, and the Bruces, along with three additional Black families, sued Manhattan Beach, citing racial prejudice. Despite asking for $120,000 total in compensation for their two lots, the Bruces only ended up receiving $14,500, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I think that Manhattan Beach is complicit in systemic racism, and we have to deal with that and work to change it and make amends to the best of our abilities,” senior Kieran Malik said.
After learning about the beach’s past, Hahn decided that some restitution should be in order for the Bruce family. According to Hahn, L.A. County is considering giving the property directly back to any descendents of the Bruce family or paying the remaining family members as a form of reparation.
“I think returning the land sounds like a good thing, if that’s something the descendants want rather than compensation,” Malik said. “But we couldn’t just do that and then say ‘okay, we did a racist thing in the past but we took it back so it’s all better now;’ we have to continue to reckon with both our racist past and our racist present.”
Because the land now holds a county lifeguard building, it is possible that the Bruce family could lease the property to the county so that the lifeguard building can stay, according to Hahn. A task force composed of Manhattan Beach residents arose in November to address the past and provide compensation to the Bruces.
The Bruce’s Beach Task Force was created in order to address the racist history of Bruce’s Beach and make suggestions to the Manhattan Beach City Council. On Oct. 20, the Manhattan Beach City Council nominated 13 members to the task force. Three subcommittees were formed: the history subcommittee, community forum subcommittee and resolution of apology subcommittee.
“Although [inequality] continues to this day in many forms, I feel so encouraged that, as a society, we are taking so many measures, such as this one, to create a safe, welcoming and equitable society for everyone,” Manhattan Beach resident and Task Force member Cinthia Joyce said.
Returning the land is a matter of the county, according to Manhattan Beach Mayor Pro Tem Hildy Stern. The apology subcommittee is drafting a statement from the Manhattan Beach City Council to both acknowledge and apologize for the city’s historically racially discriminatory practices.
The history subcommittee is working on a timeline of events that occurred from when the Bruce family bought their property in Manhattan Beach in 1912 to 2007 when the park was renamed and the plaque was put up. The community forum subcommittee outlined a few goals, such as having on-going forums designed to embrace change.
“I am proud to have the Bruce’s Beach Task Force putting in so much time and effort into this,” Joyce said. “They are researching, educating and making the recommendations to unify rather than to divide our city to make healthy and ethical discussions promoting positive changes that will have a lasting impact.”
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