Originally published 2021-04-27.
In April 2021, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn started the process of giving Bruce's Beach, a stretch of oceanfront land in Manhattan Beach, back to the descendants of the Black couple it had been taken from in the 1920s. She used the moment to argue that the whole United States should look at land and property taken from Black families and work to make amends.
At that stage the return was a proposal rather than a finished deal. It took state legislation and more than a year of legal work before the family received the deed, and the story then took another turn when the heirs decided to sell. Here is the full history, what Hahn actually called for, and why the case became a reference point in the American debate about reparations.
Who the Bruce family were
In 1912, Willa and Charles Bruce paid $1,225 for a lot on the Strand in what was then a young beach town south of Los Angeles. They built a lodge with a cafe, a dance hall and changing rooms, and the place became known as Bruce's Beach, named after Willa.
It mattered because Black Californians had very few places where they could relax by the ocean without being turned away. The resort drew visitors from across the region, and other Black families bought nearby lots and built cottages.
How the land was taken
The Bruces and their guests faced harassment almost from the start. A neighbouring developer made it harder to reach the water, forcing visitors to walk a long way round past "No Trespassing" signs. Historical accounts describe intimidation from white residents, and some reports say the Ku Klux Klan, which was active in Southern California in the 1920s, was involved; the official city records focus on the legal method used.
That method was eminent domain. In 1924 the city council moved to condemn the Bruce property and the neighbouring Black-owned lots, saying it needed the land for a public park. The buildings were demolished in 1927. The Bruces asked for $120,000 in compensation and damages but, after a court battle, received a settlement of $14,500 in 1929. The promised park was not built for decades; the land sat empty until the 1960s.
Charles and Willa Bruce never owned beachfront property again. Their descendants have described how losing the business changed the family's fortunes for generations.
What Janice Hahn called for
By the 2020s, two of the original lots were owned by Los Angeles County, which used them for a lifeguard training centre. After local activists, led by Kavon Ward and the Justice for Bruce's Beach group, drew attention to the history in 2020, Hahn took up the cause and the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in April 2021 to begin returning the land.
Speaking about the plan, Hahn said she believed this was the first time a government in the United States had returned land to an African American family to make amends for past discrimination. In remarks widely reported at the time, she described it as "a very small step towards what I think this whole country should be doing."
She went further, saying society as a whole owed an apology not only to Black Americans but to Indigenous Americans, whose land was also taken for public use. She admitted she had learned to swim in the ocean just a few blocks from the site without ever knowing its history, and that she had grown up believing the worst racial injustice belonged to the South rather than to Los Angeles.
That last point is worth dwelling on. Segregation in California rarely relied on "whites only" signs. It worked through deed restrictions, zoning decisions, lending practices and, as here, the quiet use of public powers against Black property owners.
From proposal to deed
Returning the land was not as simple as a vote. When the state handed the parcels to the county in 1995, it attached a condition preventing the county from transferring them. State Senator Steven Bradford wrote legislation to lift that restriction, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it in September 2021.
The county then had to establish who the rightful heirs were. In May 2022 it confirmed that Marcus and Derrick Bruce, great-grandsons of Charles and Willa, were the legal heirs. On 28 June 2022 the supervisors unanimously approved the transfer, and the deed was handed over at a ceremony that summer. Under the agreement, the family leased the site back to the county for about $413,000 a year so the lifeguard facility could stay.
Why the family sold it back
In January 2023 the family announced that it would sell the land back to Los Angeles County for $20 million, the maximum the transfer agreement allowed. Their lawyer said that several family members at different stages of life had weighed in, and developing the site would have meant a long approval process with the city and the California Coastal Commission.
Some readers were surprised that the heirs did not keep the beach. But the point of restitution is to restore what was taken, and that includes the freedom to decide what to do with it. Hahn welcomed the outcome: "This is what reparations look like and it is a model that I hope governments across the country will follow," she said.
The value of the property has often been reported as $72 million to $75 million, but those were media estimates, not sale prices. The actual sale was capped at $20 million.
What the case means for the reparations debate
Bruce's Beach became a reference point because it is unusually well documented. There is a clear original purchase, a clear public act that took the property, identifiable heirs and land still held by a government. Most claims arising from historic discrimination are far harder to trace.
A few lessons stand out:
- Records matter. Deeds, council minutes and court files made it possible to prove what happened a century later.
- The law can block good intentions. Even with unanimous political support, a state bill was needed before the county could act.
- Remedies can take different forms. Returning land, paying compensation and acknowledging history are separate steps, and families may choose among them.
Hahn's broader call, for the country to repair what was taken from Black and Indigenous communities, remains contested and is far from settled. But the Bruce case showed that, in at least one place, a government could identify a specific wrong and put it right.
Sources: Wikipedia: Bruce's Beach; Spectrum News 1, 3 January 2023.
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