The California state legislature gave final approval Thursday to a bill that would permit Los Angeles County to return a stretch of oceanfront property in Manhattan Beach to the Black family that owned it nearly a century ago.
Bruce’s Beach was seized by the city through an eminent domain condemnation in 1924. Manhattan Beach officials said they wanted to build a park on the land, but historical records indicated that was a ruse. The property was taken because it hosted a Black-owned resort that attracted predominantly Black patrons.
Nearby white landowners lobbied city officials to seize the land, speculating that a growing Black population in Manhattan Beach would depreciate their own home values. They were also reportedly resentful of the success of the Black-owned resort.
A restorative justice package aims to return the land to the descendents of its original owners, Willa and Charles Bruce.
"As a result of these intentional racially discriminatory acts, the Bruces lost their land and their business, the Bruce family moved out of the City of Manhattan Beach, and the city immediately demolished the Bruce's Beach resort," the bill said
Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to promptly sign off on the bill.
“I’m elated, walking on water right now,” Duane Shepard, a Bruce descendant and family historian, told The Daily Breeze. “This is one of the greatest things in American history right now.”
