Next Step for Bruce’s Beach is Task Force, Not Reparations

In 2006, an attempt was made to recognize the injustices surrounding Bruce’s Beach. On Tuesday, an attempt at redemption was set in motion.

The Manhattan Beach City Council followed up on the formation of the Bruce’s Beach Task Force, detailing the application process as well as duties of a newly developed task force. This appointed body will be given a daunting task: to find a way to provide some sense of justice regarding a stretch of land that is home to perhaps the most unjust chapter of local history.

In 1912, a Black woman named Willa Bruce purchased a plot of land in Manhattan Beach for $1,225 and turned it into a popular dance hall and lodge catering to African Americans; several more Black families followed Willa’s lead and purchased land on the same strip, creating a seaside Eden for the Black community in Los Angeles County. The Bruces and other Black property owners were met with disdain and sometimes violence from their white neighbors. Though harassment from the Ku Klux Klan failed to expel the Bruces, city officials condemned the neighborhood in 1924 and utilized the legal power of eminent domain to seize all of the Black-owned properties; the land, they said, was needed immediately to build a park (the land would sit unused for the next three decades). The Bruces received $14,500 through the eminent domain process; the city made it nearly impossible for the Bruces to purchase a new plot of land for their seaside resort. Such facilities were outlawed.

The newly proposed task force will be responsible for addressing how to move forward regarding Bruce’s Beach, which has attracted national attention and local protest in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Management analyst Alexandria Latragna, along with councilmembers Steve Napolitano and Hildy Stern, finalized the application specifics and presented them to the council. The sole requirement is that all applicants must be residents of Manhattan Beach; the application will also include questions regarding voter status, education level, and a synopsis of issues important to the applicant. The final selection of task force members will be made by a majority vote of the City Council.

Napolitano, a Manhattan Beach native impassioned by this new reckoning regarding the racial history of his hometown, delivered a poignant speech at the outset of the larger council discussion Tuesday night.

“I will start by saying yes, Black lives matter,” said Napolitano. “Ultimately, how much that truth is recognized can only be answered by what is in the hearts and minds and words and deeds across the lifetimes of those of us who are not Black.”

“The story of Bruce’s Beach parallels the story of racism in America in the early part of the last century,” continued Napolitano. “Some of us knew it and willfully ignored it, while others have been willfully ignorant of it despite books and articles written on [Bruce’s Beach] over the years. The result allowed it to just be for so many years.”

Since the history of Bruce’s Beach has been brought to delayed light, residents of Manhattan Beach and neighboring communities have expressed a muddling of indignation, weariness, and desire for change. Amid the outcry for justice are requests for more accessible literature on the history of the land and education on this specific episode of bigotry in local schools. There are also demands for reparations, restitution, and restoration, including a Change.org petition in support of such demands that has garnered more than 12,500 signatures.

Napolitano said that reparations are not at the discretion of city governments, and noted that a state task force has recently been formed to specifically address the issue of reparations.

“For those asking for reparations, these are typically considered by levels of government much higher than cities,” he said. “The issue of reparations for historic wrongs against any group of people is much bigger than Manhattan Beach and is not the sole responsibility of our current residents.”

Napolitano also said that restitution would constitute an illegal gift of public funds.

“For those demanding restitution, please know the city is precluded from making a gift of public funds for private purposes,” he said. “Any such claims require a legal basis that be pursued in the courts. There is certainly a moral claim to be made in this case. However, public funds can’t legally be used to pay such claims. For those demanding restoration of the former Bruce properties, these are currently under LA County ownership for use as a lifeguard headquarters. I support its continued use as a lifeguard station; leave it to others to ask that the county deed the property back.”

Scott Wood, professor of law at Loyola Marymount University and longtime resident of Manhattan Beach, detailed how a demand for reparations could be addressed in a situation such as this.

“How and whether economic reparations should be paid and to whom are questions that should be confronted only after the task force has a full record, including testimony and reports from those who have fully researched comparable cases, such as restitution paid in the 1990s to families of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II,” said Wood in an interview.

Wood also stressed a note of importance regarding reparations and race relations: “Of course, the campaign to obtain reparations for descendents of African slaves has been ongoing for decades,” he said. “I sincerely hope that the Bruce’s Beach Task Force will be one version of restorative justice.”

Mayor Pro Tem Suzanne Hadley expressed concern regarding the open-endedness of the task force’s duties regarding the ensurement of racial equity beyond Bruce’s Beach.

“We’re piling so much onto the little pack mule already and I want the pack mule to get into the mountains without too many burdens on its back,” said Hadley. “I think delivering for the community on Bruce’s Beach is plenty for right now.”

Napolitano had a countering point. “The task force is not about checking a box and calling it a day,” he said. “Equity and anti-racism efforts must be an ongoing effort to be effective.”

According to the 2019 US Census, of over 35,000 residents in Manhattan Beach, Black residents make up only 0.5 percent of that number; white residents make up nearly 80 percent of the population.

“Yes, the city of Manhattan Beach is overwhelmingly white, in part because of the history of Bruce’s Beach, redlining, and property covenants that kept African-Americans and others from buying and owning property here,” said Napolitano. “Those remnants of the Jim Crow era are no more…The barrier for entry these days — regardless of color or creed — is money, not racism. Manhattan Beach is not a racist city. Just because it’s not as diverse as some would like it to be, that doesn’t make it racist town. That’s not to say there aren’t or can’t be instances of racism here, just like anywhere else. Which, again, is the reason for having a task force to begin with — to recognize, learn and respect as we move forward.”

The application for the task force will be made available online as soon as this week.

“We cannot fix or change the past; what we can do is learn from it,” said Napolitano. “For me, that’s what this task force is about: to recognize the past, learn from it so it doesn’t happen again, and respect differences among people and viewpoints.” ER

Originally published on easyreadernews.com