From the LA Times -
Bruce’s Beach can return to descendants of Black family in landmark move signed by Newsom
BY ROSANNA XIA
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| From left, Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, Sen. Steven Bradford, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn and Anthony Bruce, great-great grandson of Charles and Willa Bruce, during Newsom’s signing of SB 796, authorizing the return of ocean-front land to the Bruce family. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times) |
In a history-making move celebrated by reparations advocates and social justice leaders across California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has authorized the return of property known as Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of a Black couple that had been run out of Manhattan Beach almost a century ago.
Senate Bill 796, signed into law Thursday by Newsom before an excited crowd that had gathered on the property, confirms that the city’s taking of this shorefront land — on which the Bruces ran a thriving resort for Black beachgoers — was racially motivated and done under false and unlawful pretenses.
“The land in the City of Manhattan Beach, which was wrongfully taken from Willa and Charles Bruce, should be returned to their living descendants,” the legislation declares, “and it is in the public interest of the State of California, the County of Los Angeles, the City of Manhattan Beach, and the People of the State of California to do so.”
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