The recent rain clouds departed just in time for the sun to shine on a new monument that was unveiled in Manhattan Beach this weekend.
Manhattan Beach cut the ribbon on its new plaque at Bruce’s Beach Park on Saturday, March 18.
The new marker honors Black entrepreneurs Willa and Charles Bruce, who ran a seaside resort for Black beachgoers in the early 20th century — between the city’s 26th and 27th streets by what’s now the Strand — as well as other Black property owners who had cottages on the now-park land.
City leadership in the late 1920s took the land through eminent domain for racially motivated reasons, under the guise of needing more park land. The deed to the Bruces’ two parcels of land, below the park and right before the sand, was transferred to descendants of Willa and Charles last year, but the heirs sold the land back to L.A. County earlier this year for $20 million.
The original plaque focused mostly on early, White developer George Peck’s role in allowing Black people to buy beachfront land in Manhattan Beach. But now, finally, the city has set in stone its part in acknowledging this piece of its history.
The Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” was played before Mayor Steve Napolitano and a few members of the former history advisory board that compiled a report on Bruce’s Beach gave remarks.
“It’s been a long road, too long, to get here,” Napolitano said Saturday.
It had, in fact, taken nearly three years.
The event was previously set for February, during Black History Month, but was rescheduled due to weather. Before that, the city missed a few other target dates over the past year to install the plaque.
The national reckoning on systemic racism that exploded in 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, became particularly local in Manhattan Beach. A Juneteenth celebration, organized by activist Kavon Ward, brought to light the history of Bruce’s Beach and the…
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