L.A. County Agrees To Move Ahead with Bruce's Beach Report Plan
Jul 13, 2021 04:55PM ● By Jeanne Fratello
A map of the Bruce's Beach area. The parcels marked in gold are parcels that were owned by Black families in the 1920s. Willa and Charles Bruce owned parcels 8 and 9. The block marked in red (Block 5) is currently county-owned. The block marked in dark blue (Block 12) is currently owned by the city of Manhattan Beach as Bruce's Beach Park.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to implement the steps set forth in the county's Bruce's Beach report released last month.
The Board of Supervisors' report
details plans for the steps it would take to return beachfront
parcels of land in Manhattan Beach to descendants of Willa and Charles
Bruce.
Supervisors agreed to move forward with the following steps as set forth in the report:
- Work with relevant county departments to conduct any necessary land assessments, appraisals and analyses needed for transfer of the property;
- Evaluate and propose options, including the impact upon the legal heirs, to address property tax issues associated with the transfer of the property;
- Work with the Fire Department to complete a full operational assessment and identify strategies to mitigate operational impacts upon the county and fire resulting from the transfer of property;
- Instruct the County Counsel, in collaboration with the Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI) Initiative and relevant departments, to retain a third-party law firm to conduct a thorough and transparent legal heir determination process.
"The county, as the current landowner, is now in the position to right
this wrong and address generational inequality and anti-Black racism
that occurred in the county," concluded the supervisors' report.
County officials have said they plan to move forward with the steps outlined in the report while they wait for the California State Legislature to approve SB 796, a bill to remove current state restrictions on the land and formally allow the county to transfer the parcels to Bruce family descendants.
Bruce's Beach Background
The story of Bruce's Beach dates back to the early 1900s, when
Charles and Willa Bruce built a popular Black beach resort in Manhattan
Beach. The property was one of the very few beaches where Black residents could go, because
most other Southern California beaches were off-limits to people of color.
By the end of the
1920s, with pressure from community members who did not want Black
beachgoers in town, Manhattan Beach's Board of Trustees (a precursor
to the modern city council) claimed the land under eminent domain and
displaced the Bruce family as well as other families who had settled in
the area.
In 1948, the beachfront property once owned by the Bruce family was
transferred to the state, with conditions. In 1995, L.A. County accepted
control of Bruce’s Beach and other lands from the state.
It
was not until 2006 that the city of Manhattan Beach publicly acknowledged this chapter of
its history by naming the area east of the beachfront property Bruce's Beach Park, and it was not until the
summer of 2020 that a movement began growing for the city to take further action to recognize the Bruces.
After a summer of controversy surrounding the history of Bruce's Beach, the Manhattan Beach City Council agreed to form a task force to look
at new ways to recognize and commemorate Bruce's Beach Park. The task force was disbanded
after it delivered its report in March; the city adopted the history subcommittee's report in June.
The Bruce's Beach
task force had called for an official resolution of apology from the
city of Manhattan Beach. After much discussion over several options, the
city voted in early April for a "resolution of acknowledgement and condemnation" rather than an apology.
Meanwhile,
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn and the Board of Supervisors have proposed returning the two original parcels of beachfront property that the Bruce family
once owned to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. Those
beachfront parcels are immediately west of Bruce's Beach Park and are
currently the site of
the Los Angeles County Lifeguard training headquarters.
Bruce
family representatives have not yet said what their plans would be for
the property if it were to be returned to them. Hahn has suggested that
she would be open to having the Bruce family lease it back to the county
for the lifeguard headquarters in exchange for fair market rent.
The action comes at a time when reparations are a hot topic of discussion around the country. The idea of reparations for slavery has been particularly divisive, with one national survey showing that only one in 10 white respondents supported the idea while half of Black respondents endorsed it.
