PLAN WOULD RETURN BEACHFRONT TAKEN FROM BLACK FAMILY IN 1920S

Los Angeles County plans to return prime beachfront property to descendants of a Black couple who built a seaside resort for African Americans but suffered racist harassment and were stripped of it by local city leaders a century ago, a county official said Friday.

“It is the county’s intention to return this property,” Janice Hahn, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, told a news conference at what was known as Bruce’s Beach in the city of Manhattan Beach.

The decision in Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, comes at a time of national reckoning on race and discussions at the local, state and federal levels over reparations.

The property encompasses two parcels purchased in 1912 by Willa and Charles Bruce, who built the first West Coast resort for Black people at a time when segregation barred them from many beaches. They built a lodge, cafe, dance hall and dressing tents with bathing suits for rent. Initially it was known as Bruce’s Lodge.

“Bruce’s Beach became a place where Black families traveled from far and wide to be able to enjoy the simple pleasure of a day at the beach,” Hahn said.

It did not last long. The Bruces and their customers were harassed by White neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan attempted to burn it down. The Manhattan Beach City Council finally used eminent domain to take the land away from the Bruces in the 1920s, purportedly for use as a park.

After lying unused for years, the land was transferred to the state of California in 1948 and in 1995 it was transferred to Los Angeles County for beach operations and maintenance.

The last transfer came with restrictions that limit the ability to sell or transfer the property and can only be lifted through a new state law, Hahn said.

State Sen. Steven Bradford said that on Monday he will introduce legislation, SB 796, that would exempt the land from those restrictions.

“After so many years we will right this injustice,” he said.