Background on Bruce\u2019s Beach:<\/strong><\/p>\nIn 1912, an African American couple named Willa and Charles Bruce purchased prime beachfront property in Manhattan Beach and started a successful beach resort that became known as Bruce\u2019s Beach. \u00a0It was one of the few places in Southern California where Black residents could enjoy a day at the beach.<\/p>\n
In 1924, prompted by a petition from local white real estate agents and other civic leaders, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted to condemn Bruce\u2019s Beach and the surrounding land through eminent domain to build a park. It is well documented that the real reason behind the eminent domain process was racially motivated with the intention of bringing an end to the successful Black business in the predominantly white community.<\/p>\n
At the time that the Council voted to condemn the land, it also put new laws on the books that prohibited resort-type businesses in that area, effectively prohibiting the Bruce family from purchasing other beachfront property for a resort. In 1929, the court awarded their property to the City of Manhattan Beach through eminent domain.<\/p>\n
The Bruce family moved out of Manhattan Beach, and the City immediately demolished the Bruce\u2019s Beach resort. No park was built, and the land sat empty for decades. The City of Manhattan Beach finally built a park in 1956 on the land behind the Bruce\u2019s Beach resort, nearly 30 years later.<\/p>\n
Through a series of land transfers between the City of Manhattan Beach, the State of California, and the County of Los Angeles, the County acquired the land that was originally owned by Charles and Willa Bruce in 1995. It is currently the site of the County\u2019s Lifeguard Training Headquarters.<\/p>\n
In April 2021, Los Angeles County Supervisors Janice Hahn announced her intention to return the Bruce\u2019s Beach property to the living descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. However, at that time the County was unable to transfer the property due to limitations placed on the land by the State.\u00a0 At Hahn\u2019s request, Senator Steve Bradford introduced SB796, legislation that would lift State restrictions on the property and allow the County to transfer the land to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce.\u00a0 \u00a0SB 796 passed both the State Senate and Assembly with unanimous support and was signed into law by Governor Newsom on September 30, 2021 at Bruce\u2019s Beach, allowing the County to move forward with plans to transfer the property to the Bruce family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Los Angeles, CA — Los Angeles...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49667,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49666\/revisions\/49667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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