CITY COUNCIL Bruce’s Beach plaque and language is approved
by Mark McDermott After nearly two years and dozens of public meetings spent grappling with the issue, the Manhattan Beach City Council finally arrived at its most permanent symbolic gesture thus far to recognize the racist history underlying Bruce’s Beach park. Last Thursday, the Council approved language for a plaque that will be erected in the park, memorializing and attempting to differentiate the current city from what occurred there nearly a century ago. In 303 words, the plaque language gives a very brief history [see sidebar] of the events that began in 1912 when a Black couple, Charles and Willa Bruce, established a resort catering to the African American Angelino community, which in 1927 culminated with the forced dispossession of the Bruces and four other Black families from their land through the power of eminent domain. The plaque acknowledges that the City’s removal of the families occurred because they were Black. “The City’s action at the time was racially motivated and wrong,” the plaque states in its concluding lines. “Today, the City acknowledges, empathizes, and condemns those past actions. We are not the Manhattan Beach of one hundred years ago. We reject…
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