California

How One Beach City's Racial Reckoning Is Putting California's Racist History Front and Center

'Returning Bruce’s Beach would certainly repair the damage done to Charles and Willa’s family who lost out on generational wealth, but it can never repair the trauma inflicted by the KKK,' a family spokesman said

NBCUniversal Media, LLC Nearly a century after the city of Manhattan Beach used a legal tool to take land away from Black property owners, an area known as Bruce’s Beach, Los Angeles County tells NBCLA it is looking at returning it to the descendants of the Bruce family. Jonathan Gonzalez reports for NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2021. Credits: Manhattan...

The descendants of a Black family forced out of business nearly 100 years ago by officials of a wealthy coastal city south of Los Angeles are on the verge of recouping what once belonged to them.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to begin the process of transferring beachfront property to the descendants of Charles and Willa Bruce, whose once-thriving resort in affluent Manhattan Beach was taken under eminent domain in 1924. A statewide bill was also introduced earlier this month that will allow Los Angeles County to return the land to the Bruce family's descendants.

Returning Bruce’s Beach to the family that first developed the land is part of California’s broader push toward reckoning with its checkered past, which also includes reforming the criminal justice system and creating a pathway for reparation payments to descendants of slaves.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com.

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