$20 million property returned to Black family after 98 years

[msmerymac]

In the wake of the George Floyd murder, the Manhattan Beach, CA, did a deep dive into the history of Bruce's Beach, a Black-owned resort that was purchased by Charles and Willa Bruce in 1912 to welcome Black beach-goers at a time when whites-only shorelines prevailed. They dealt with a ton of racism and attacks, and eventually their property was seized as eminent domain by the government in 1924.

The property is now a city park, but is worth $20 million. The LA County Board of Supervisors voted to return it to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. The family will now lease it back to Manhattan Beach for just over $400k per year. 


www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-06-29/essential-california-return-bruces-beach-essential-california

news.yahoo.com/bruces-beach-returned-family-nearly-113418761.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce%27s_Beach


"the local police department put up signs limiting parking to 10 minutes, and another local landowner put up no trespassing signs, forcing people to walk half a mile to reach the water, he said.



When those measures failed to deter visitors, the local authorities seized the land under eminent domain laws - designed to let the government forcibly buy land needed for roads and other public buildings.



Officials claimed they planned to build a park. That did not happen until many decades later, and the area remained vacant in the interim.



On Tuesday, the motion to return the land acknowledged, "it is well documented that this move was a racially motivated attempt to drive out the successful black business and its patrons"."

[suburbanzookeeper]

I have been following along with this on TikTok and am glad to finally see it transitioning back to the family!

[notsopicky]

I was watching CNN about a 1/2 hour ago and the reporter said that the Bruce family was only paid $14K and change for the land, when it was worth $200K+ at the time (I can't find a citation for that amount, tho). A representative for the family said that the hope is that other families can use the structure of this case to get back seized lands in other places.

[livinitup]

I recently had lunch in Manhattan Beach with family that live locally and they were telling me all about this. I am so glad to see the court victory but damn the systems of racism are deep and strong.

That community is gorgeous and densely populated with great wealth. It’s a bit overwhelming to think of what could have flourished for the black community, now a hundred years later, if they were not stamped out.