The nation’s first tangible act of reparations is complete — pending escrow.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday, June 28, to return two parcels of oceanfront property to the Bruce family, more than 90 years after Manhattan Beach used eminent domain, for racially motivated reasons, to take the property away from their ancestors.
The vote marks the culmination of more than a year of legislative maneuvering to return the land to the Bruce family.
The land once housed Bruce’s Beach Lodge, a seaside resort owned by and operated for Black people as a recreational haven during the early 20th century, a time when African Americans lacked access to the coast.
But Manhattan Beach, where the property is located, used eminent domain to repossess the land owned by Willa and Charles Bruce, who were Black, along with other nearby properties. The city’s eminent domain effort, historical records show, was motivated by a desire to force Black people out of Manhattan Beach.
But now, after an arduous, legally complex process, the land will go back to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce: After a 30-day closing period, the Bruces’ great-grandsons, Marcus and Derrick Bruce, will inherit the 7,000 square-foot property, valued at $20 million.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time the government has returned property to a Black family after acknowledging it had been improperly taken,” Bruce family attorney George C. Fatheree, a partner at the Sidley Austin law firm, said during public comment Tuesday. “And we’re hopeful that it will not be the last.”
Fatheree, who has represented the Bruces throughout the land transfer process, also said the board’s decision to return the land will allow the family to heal — and will repay generations of lost wealth.
After the Bruces receive the deed, they will lease the property back to the county for $413,000 annually for two years, according to an agreement the supervisors OK’d Tuesday. Once that lease is up, the family will have the option to sell the property back to the county for $20 million.
The county will transfer the land to the Bruces without any restrictions on its use. Manhattan Beach, though, still has the power to change zoning laws for what kinds of properties can operate in its coastal area.
Derrick and Marcus Bruce, the great-grandsons of Willa and Charles, will manage the property with help from Anthony Bruce, Derrick’s son.
Anthony and his brother, Michael, will share the inheritance with their father and uncle, according to Bruce descendant and family spokesman Duane Shepard.
Though both the Bruces and the county will pay closing costs on the agreement, the latter will reimburse the family $50,000. That money must then be donated to a nonprofit legal services provider that is helping the Bruces with the transactions.
The Bruces will be responsible for all property taxes for the current fiscal year and beyond.
LA County’s Lifeguard Training Station will remain on the Bruces’ land for at least the next two years. The county will pay all operations and maintenance costs during the lease’s tenure, according to the agreement.
There’s no plan, as of yet, on what the Bruces will do with the property after the lease ends, Antony Bruce said, as everyone is just coming together to see where they can go as a family.
The effort to return the land to the Bruces began in April 2021 with the introduction of state Senate Bill 796, which removed deed restrictions that prevented the county from transferring the property back to the Bruces. The county supervisors supported that bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September.
The parcels now being returned to the Bruces are bordered by 26th and 27th streets, Manhattan Avenue and The Strand. In 1948, about 20 years years after Manhattan Beach took over that land, the city gave the property to the state.
The state, in turn, gave the parcels to LA County in 1995, on the condition that the county couldn’t transfer the property. That’s why SB 796 was necessary.
Manhattan Beach’s use of eminent domain in the late 1920s also scooped up other nearby properties, with that generation’s leaders saying they wanted to turn the area into a park. But the land sat vacant for decades before that happened. Eventually, the open space was renamed Bruce’s Beach Park.
The city still owns that park.
As for the Bruce family’s parcels, the heir-vetting process delayed the transfer, Shepard said in a previous interview, with more than 100 people falsely claiming to be direct descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce.
“It’s been a battle,” Shepard said last week. “I’m just happy, really relieved it finally has come to the point where the family is going to get their land back.”
Shepard had been researching his family’s genealogy since 1994, he said, and in 2017, found Willa and Charles’ connections to himself and other Bruce family members.
“It’s been a long journey,” he said, “but for it to happen so quickly since 2020, I never could have imagined.”
Before any elected officials took interest in rectifying what they now call an historical injustice, activist Kavon Ward organized an event that called attention to the Bruces’ story.
In June 2020, just days after George Floyd was murdered at the hands of police, Ward planned a picnic at Bruce’s Beach Park to celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday marking when the last group of enslaved African Americans, in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
History in the making:
Chair @HollyJMitchell has just signed the transfer agreement, returning Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family.
This is the first land return like it in our nation’s history, but it cannot and will not be the last. pic.twitter.com/Hh044g4YII
— Janice Hahn (@SupJaniceHahn) June 28, 2022
At the event, Ward questioned why the venue — once a site dedicated to Black leisure — was now a hilly, grassy public recreation area. She helped spark the Justice for Bruce’s Beach movement, which eventually caught the attention of officials, such as county Supervisor Janice Hahn and state Sen. Steven Bradford, who worked to return the land to the family.
“I’m excited,” Ward said last week. “I’m full of gratitude that I’ve been used as a vessel to help make this happen.”
Hahn, whose district included Manhattan Beach before decennial redistricting, said on Tuesday that the monumental decision may be the first of its kind — but won’t be the last.
“We can’t change the past and we will never be able to make up for the injustice that was done to Willa and Charles Bruce a century ago,” Hahn said. “But this a start. And by returning the property to their great-grandsons, we’re allowing the family to start rebuilding the generational wealth that was denied for decades.”
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who now represents Manhattan Beach, said this one act won’t make up for all harm done to Black residents in California’s past. She also mentioned the state’s indigenous people.
“We aren’t giving property to anyone today. We are returning property that was erroneously — based on fear and hate — taken from them,” Mitchell said during Tuesday’s supervisors meeting. “This does not undo the harm for all peoples of this land — or frankly the other Black families who owned adjacent parcels. The history and stories of Black and Indigenous people are interconnected.”
Both Mitchell and Hahn said they would work with Los Angeles’ indigenous leaders on potentially providing reparations for similar cases of stolen land in the future.
“I’m very appreciative that we’re going to be looking at our Native American history,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis. “This certainly sets a precedent for us to move forward and recognize other injustices.”
Shortly after taking the vote to approve the final property transfer to the Bruce family, the supervisors took a brief recess to sign the documents — an administrative irregularity that, they said, was meant to ensure no more time was wasted in returning the property to its rightful owners.
Anthony Bruce said last week that he and his family were overwhelmed, yet thankful, that their family’s property is finally being returned. The family also wants to live up to Willa and Charles Bruce’s legacy.
“The few descendants that are left alive,” he said, “will strive to make sure that (Willa and Charles’) work and success was not in vain.”