Ella Fukushima

          Using the ProQuest library database, the L.A. Times magazine’s “Sands of Time” article appeared multiple times when searching for information on “Bruce’s Beach” and “racial discrimination in Manhattan Beach”. After reading through the editorial, these sentences — “But as the popularity of Bruce’s Beach grew, so did white hostility. Black beachgoers would find their tires slashed; the Ku Klux Klan torched a black-owned home nearby and tried to burn down the resort” ( L.A. Times , 2007) — stuck out to me the most. It actually prompted my essay and further research into the unacknowledged/unknown African American families who were also affected by the KKK and white hostility of the 1920s in South Bay. While Governor Gavin Newson has specifically acknowledged the wrongdoings of Bruce’s Beach and there is a Senate bill to transfer property rights back to the Bruce family, this is not the end. The quote in the L.A. Times article hints at an unfortunate reality that more families

Image Credits: Pete Morris on californiabeaches.com (Top); The Guardian (Bottom) Being born and raised in Manhattan Beach, I immediately planned on doing my Writing Project 2 on my hometown’s Bruce’s Beach, specifically amendments to rectify the displacement via eminent domain that occurred a hundred years ago. Coincidentally, one of our assigned readings covered the story of Bruce’s Beach. On September 30, 2021, California’s Governor Newsom returned the property to the Bruce family along with condemning/apologizing for the racial discrimination as local authorities forced the family, against their will, to sell the first resort for African Americans on the west coast. While returning the land and giving the Bruce family the freedom to use the property however they chose, the local authorities in the 1920s took away the family wealth and inheritance. Being worth $72 million, the family should be compensated for more than the mere $14,500 that they received from the city in 1929. While