The following is the language approved by the City Council on March 17. After being turned away from other coastal cities, Willa and Charles Bruce purchased…
Meda Simmons Bruce, Harvey Bruce, and Willa Bruce at Bruce’s Lodge. date unknown. Photo from the California African American Museum
An American dream came to an end at Bruce’s Beach, but the memory of what happened survived
Third in a series
by Mark McDermott
By the first years of the 1920s, Manhattan Beach was coming together. In the decade since its founding, what had been mostly a scattering of sandswept shacks emerged as an actual town. A city hall was built and residents approved bonds to construct both a waterworks and a pier with a distinctive octagonal roundhouse at its end. The city’s population had increased, albeit modestly, from 600 people to almost 900. But one particular segment of the population was growing in a way that some people in the city found concerning.
Several members of the public urged the board to support Hahn s motion. You all have the ability to set this right, one resident told the board, calling the transfer an opportunity for genuine reparations. This land was stolen because of racism . and the only thing keeping it from being returned is racism.
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who co-authored the motion, said this was just one example of property lost, of dreams deferred, pointing to how the construction of the Santa Monica (10) Freeway and Chavez Ravine split neighborhoods and destroyed wealth. Eminent domain is supposed to be reserved for the use of public good, Mitchell said, but housing convenants and zoning throughout Los Angeles history has been divisively used by governments and others to keep a community down.