Local News

Manhattan Beach property seized from Black couple formally returned to Bruce family grandsons

By Darleene Powells

Updated on: July 21, 2022 / 9:56 AM PDT / KCAL News

Manhattan Beach property seized from Black couple formally returned to Bruce family descendants

A prime stretch of property in Manhattan Beach was formally handed back Wednesday to the descendants of a Black couple it was seized from more than a century ago.

County and state officials formally presented the deed back to the Bruce family at a ceremony Wednesday in Manhattan Beach. The grandsons of Willa and Charles Bruce, Derrick and Marcus Bruce, say they plan to lease the beach back to the county for $400,000 a year.

"It represents a template for other states to follow to fight, to repair, and ultimately, salvage what was lost, not just here in California, but every place where Blacks were not given an equal opportunity and allowed to thrive," state Sen. Steve Bradford said.

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 29: In an aerial view, Bruce's Beach (C) is wedged between expensive real estate on June 29, 2022 in Manhattan Beach, California. The beachfront property was once a seaside resort owned by Charles and Willa Bruce, a Black couple, which catered to African Americans. Amid the Jim Crow era, the city claimed the property in 1924 through eminent domain while vastly underpaying the couple for the land. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved the plan to return ownership of the prime beachfront property to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. / Getty Images

The oceanfront park in Manhattan Beach was renamed Bruce's Beach in 2006 for the couple who owned the property in the 1920s, turning it into resort catering to the Black community. The property was seized from the Bruce family as the result of a racist campaign spearheaded by the Ku Klux Klan.

In the wake of civil unrest ignited by the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, an online petition called for a more visible, complete tribute to the Bruce family and what happened to them. Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn took that effort a step further, and proposed a plan to return the property at the Strand and 26th Street back to the Bruce family.

"When I met with our County lawyers last year and said I wanted to return this property to the Bruce family, they said nothing like it had ever been done before. The work ahead of us would be unprecedented," Hahn tweeted Wednesday. "Today, we are sending a message to every government in this nation confronted with this same challenge: this work is no longer unprecedented. We have set the precedent and it is the pursuit of justice."

Hahn said the long-sought victory had her thinking of Willa Bruce's battle to get the land back for her family, and her children and grandchildren, who were denied generational wealth and opportunities when the property was seized from them.

"We can't change the past," Hahn said in her statement. "And we will never be able to make up for the injustice that was done to Willa and Charles Bruce nearly a century ago. But this is a start."