The Bruce’s Beach property in Los Angeles will be sold to the city of Los Angeles for nearly 20 million years after it was taken from the Bruce family
Bruce’s Beach, an oceanfront property in Southern California that was taken from Black owners in the Jim Crow era and returned to their descendants last year, will be sold back to Los Angeles County for nearly $20 million, county officials said Tuesday.
After 98 years after the property was taken from the Bruce family by the city of Manhattan Beach, the Bruce family got the official deed last year.
The land was purchased in 1912 by Willa and Charles Bruce for $1,200 and they later built a cafe and changing rooms. The resort became a popular tourist attraction that offered Black families a place to enjoy the California life, but the family faced intimidation and racial threats from White neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair was quoted as saying “This fight has always been about what is best for the family, and they feel good about selling this property back to the County for nearly $20 million.”
The Bruce family was made to pay the price for the injustice they saw, as stated by NBC Los Angeles. “We haven’t always had a proud past.”
“Wherever we have attempted to acquire land to build a beach resort, we have been refused but I own this land and I am going to keep it,” Willa Bruce was quoted saying in a report from the task force assembled by Manhattan Beach.
The city later stated on a plaque that this two block neighborhood was once home to several minority families and was condemned through the use ofEminent domain in 1924.
When the resort was seized, the city demolished its buildings, but it never followed through on the purported plan to build a park on the site. To prevent the Bruces from relocating their operation, the city council also voted to block any new resorts from opening, as the text of the state’s 2021 law notes.
Commenting on the pending sale, Los Angeles County Board Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell issued a statement saying that the land’s return “will continue to serve as an example of what is possible across the globe when you have the political will and leadership to correct the injustices of the past.”