by Mark McDermott
The Manhattan Beach City Council on Tuesday night apologized to the families dispossessed a century ago at Bruce’s Beach due to the City’s racially motivated condemnation of their land.
In a resolution approved in a 4-1 vote, the Council apologized for the City’s “discriminatory condemnation action” to dispossess the African American families who lived at the beach, Willa and Charles A. Bruce, Major George and Mrs. Ethel Prioleau, Elizabeth Patterson, Mary R. Sanders, Milton and Anna Johnson, as well as unnamed white property owners who had not yet built homes, but were also subject to condemnation proceedings in the 1920s.
“The City directly apologizes to these former property owners for unjustly taking their property under false pretenses,” the resolution says.
The action reverses the course of the previous council’s decision, in 2021, to reject an apology proposed by Councilperson Steve Napolitano in favor of “an acknowledgment and condemnation” largely authored by Councilperson Joe Franklin that acknowledged the City’s role in the racially motivated dispossession but stopped short of apologizing.
Councilpersons David Lesser and Amy Howorth, who were both elected to council in November, put the apology on the agenda. They did so immediately after Napolitano, in his final act as mayor, gave an impassioned speech at the March 18 dedication of the City’s new Bruce’s Beach plaque. In his remarks, Napolitano personally apologized to the families and urged the Council to do likewise.
Lesser, who’d previously served with Howorth, from 2011 to 2018, said both Napolitano’s remarks and pledge of inclusiveness adopted by the City when he was mayor in 2017 compelled him to push for an apology.
“We committed to stand up to all forms of hate, bigotry, violence and bullying and to take action to not just make them words but to do something,” Lesser said. “The draft resolution proposed by Councilmember Napolitano in 2021 that is before us tonight includes the pledge and an apology…And I would say this: by apologizing for the actions of prior city leadership, we recognize our history for its good and its bad. We’re open. We’re transparent. Because that’s where we are. We honor our pledge, and we help move our community forward.”
Howorth praised both Napolitano and Mayor Richard Montgomery, who was on council in 2006 when the issue of renaming Bruce’s Beach park was first raised. The park was at the time named Parque Culiacan. Montgomery called for an apology to the former homeowners of Bruce’s Beach at that time but was rejected by then-mayor Mitch Ward.
“I think all of us have grown a lot and have learned a lot in the last several years, and I don’t blame anyone for what they thought was they were doing what they thought was right,” Howorth said. “But they were wrong. We have a chance to correct the course for our city…We must do this. This is the right thing to do.”
Franklin said he stood by every word he spoke almost exactly two years ago, on April 6, 2021, and repeated some of those words verbatim. “We can’t paint the entire city at that time or today with a broad brush of racism due to the acts of some of its residents and members of city council 100 years ago,” Franklin said, reciting his statement at that time. “Yes, there was harassment by some of the residents. Yes, there were bad acts by some of the residents. Yes, there were immoral acts by some on the city council. But no resident living in Manhattan Beach now is responsible for the racist actions 100 years ago.”
Franklin argued that an apology would leave the City vulnerable to litigation and referenced threats from a Bruce family spokesperson in a New York Times article, and by activist Kavon Ward, the founder of the Justice for Bruce’s Beach movement, whose protests in 2020 brought renewed attention to the City’s past actions.
“I’m personally sorry about what happened to the Bruces and other families who made Manhattan Beach their home,” Franklin said. “But the issue of liability looms over our actions today, and cannot be easily or lightly dismissed in the tenuous and litigious environment in which we find ourselves.”
Napolitano rebuffed Franklin’s argument.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s nonsense.”
He noted that the City Attorney’s office had examined other public agencies’ apologies for historical racist misdeeds, and found no example of a resulting lawsuit, and thanked his colleagues for having the courage to revisit the matter.
“I made a prediction in 2021 after the council adopted the acknowledgment…I predicted a future council would adopt an apology,” Napolitano said. “And I couldn’t be more proud than that I am part of this council that is going to do that right now. Not because it’s woke, not because it’s performative. But because it is the right thing to do.”
Councilperson Amy Howorth spoke directly to Franklin, in hopes of gaining unanimous support for an apology. She argued that concerns over liability did not prevent him from rejecting the proposed Highrose development, another action of the previous council that this one has overturned.
“Acknowledging what happened…it’s nothing,” she said “So I really hope we can get you there, because if you’re worried about liability, we had the Highrose decision a few months back, which by us taking the action that we did probably saved the city tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits, and you weren’t so concerned about that. So I am going to challenge you because I think it is pretextual. We will prevail as people who took the right action. I don’t doubt where your heart is, and no one else should — because this is a good man.”
Montgomery said that the apology was a necessary step for the City to move forward. He said today’s Manhattan Beach is far different than the city of 100 years ago, citing the diversity of the people both who reside in and visit the city.
“We are an anti-racist city,” he said. “…I appreciate my colleagues Lesser and Howorth bringing this back up, and I understand where we are trying to go. I am proud to join them.”
Franklin declined to join his colleagues and cast the only vote against the apology.
The resolution adopted in the 4-1 vote went beyond apologizing for the dispossession of those who lived on the land who were subject of the eminent domain action, but also the role the City subsequently played in “tolerating racial discrimination and harassment by City residents that went unpunished, causing terror and intimidation among the Black community, including John McCaskill, Elzia Irvin, James and Anna Janet Leggett, and James and Lula Slaughter,” as well as “the role the City played conspiring to exclude Black Americans from its beach and utilizing its police force to enforce such exclusion by way of unlawful and unconstitutional arrests and prosecutions.” The resolution also apologized for ordinances enacted by the City at the time of Bruce’s Beach that discouraged the expansion of Black-owned resorts and for the “overdue recognition of these events to the detriment of generations of Manhattan Beach residents.”
In her remarks earlier in the meeting, Howorth singled out former councilperson Hildy Stern, who in 2021 had also advocated for an apology, and then was the lone dissenting vote for the acknowledgement that was ultimately passed. “Her grace and strength has really meant a difference in this community,” Howorth said.
During the public comment section of the meeting, Stern expressed gratitude for the current council’s leadership.
“Mayor Napolitano, your personal apology at the plaque dedication was a turning point for our city, which was then followed by Councilmembers Lesser and Howorth requesting this to be brought back for reconsideration,” Stern said. “You each showed great bravery as leaders who are willing to listen and to learn. An apology says you firmly recognize that the racially motivated actions by the Manhattan Beach community in the 1920s were unacceptable. An apology says you do care about everyone who lives or works in or visits Manhattan Beach. An apology says you stand with our entire community in condemning racism, and will always strive to be better. An apology says you are a leader whom we can be proud of to represent Manhattan Beach. Thank you for standing up for our entire community.” ER
