In what is likely a national precedent, the black descendants of a couple who owned beachfront property seized by the government during the 1920s will receive reparations from Los Angeles County totaling $413,000 a year.
Bruce’s Beach, an oceanfront park in the wealthy celebrity enclave of Manhattan Beach, was once owned by Charles and Willa Bruce who built a lodge, cafe, and dance hall that attracted black families seeking a lush getaway.
But as more black families moved into the area, Manhattan Beach authorities decided to redline the area through eminent domain and pass a law prohibiting the construction of any similar businesses in order to drive the Bruces out of town, the California Senate wrote in a bill authorizing the return of the property to the family’s descendants.
Next week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to sign off on a plan to reimburse great-great-grandson Charles Bruce along with his uncle and father for the property that bears his family name, the Los Angeles Times reported. No legal remedy existed to return the property until Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation in September.
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The property will be transferred to the Bruce family and leased back by the county, which will pay operation and maintenance costs. The county will also have an option to buy the land for $20 million after the first two years.
The area is one of the priciest on the coast — a 3,000-square-foot home near the property is listed for sale at $13.5 million, according to Zillow.com. The Bruce family paid just $1,225 in 1912 and were evicted in 1924. The legal wrangling to fix the situation has taken years because no precedent exists.
“The law was used to steal this property 100 years ago, and the law today will give it back,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said at a press conference when Newsom signed the bill. “My goal over the next several months will be to transfer this property in a way that not only works for the Bruce family — but is a model that other local governments can follow.”
The process was not without difficulty, however. A lawsuit stalled the endeavor, but a judge ruled in the county’s favor.
“The court finds where the appropriation of public funds and/or property is to address and/or remedy racial discrimination committed by the government, it serves a public purpose,” Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff wrote in his April 14 ruling.
“Righting a government wrong perpetrated in breach of our core and fundamental constitutional principles works to strengthen governmental integrity, represents accountability in government and works to eliminate structural racism and bias,” he continued.
Likewise, a federal judge condemned the county’s lengthy history of property seizure based on race. In a 109-page order issued last year aimed at re-homing all of the Skid Row population, U.S. District Judge David Carter blasted the redlining process that created Los Angeles’s freeway system and set up the future Skid Row.
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“As its Black population increased by tens of thousands, Los Angeles utilized racially restrictive covenants, redlining, and eminent domain to racially segregate neighborhoods,” Carter wrote.
“An uptick in Ku Klux Klan violence further targeted Black families who resided in majority white neighborhoods — including widespread cross burnings, bombings, and drive-by shootings,” he continued. “In Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles County employed eminent domain to take property from Black families and turn the land into a whites-only park.”
