MANHATTAN BEACH 2021 Year in Review: A city divided over matters of race and social justice
by Mark McDermott The issues of race, social justice, and pandemic policies that roiled the nation came into sharp relief in Manhattan Beach in 2021. The city grappled with a century old racist episode that took on new resonance in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and then faced renewed attention when a racist incident occurred at the Manhattan Beach pier. Meanwhile, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District came under attack from both local parents and a national far-right media site for its allegedly “woke” educational policies. Bruce’s Beach Sometimes protests achieve what they set out to do. It happens only rarely, but in the case of the Justice for Bruce’s Beach protests, this is exactly what occurred. The result reverberated across the nation. Activist and poet Kavon Ward launched Justice for Bruce’s last year as a sort of parallel, localized outgrowth of the Black Lives Matter movement. She had a very specific goal: to return the parcels of land that had been taken through the City of Manhattan Beach’s racially motivated use of eminent domain a century ago to the Bruce family. Willa and Charles Bruce purchased the land in 1912 and built a resort that catered to…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com