LA County pays $20M to buy beachfront property returned to black family as reparations
Tori Richards
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A black family that was given a Los Angeles beachfront property as reparations has decided to sell the home back to the city council for $20 million.
The pricey plot in the celebrity haven of Manhattan Beach is now a park that bears the family name of a couple who built the first black oceanfront resort in the area.
BLACK FAMILY RECEIVES REPARATIONS FOR STOLEN PROPERTY 98 YEARS LATER
The county of Los Angeles confiscated the property in 1924 under eminent domain due to pressure from white neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said.
Hahn said in a statement on Tuesday: “This fight has always been about what is best for the Bruce family, and they feel what is best for them is selling this property back to the county for nearly $20 million and finally rebuilding the generational wealth they were denied for nearly a century.”
Anthony Bruce reflected on his great-grandparents during a ceremony in June to receive his ancestral home.
“It destroyed their chance at the American dream. I wish they could see what has happened today,” the Daily Mail reported.
Bruce added, “I want to remain level-headed about the entire thing. I want to make sure I don’t lose focus as to what Charles and Willa’s dream was. The dream was to just have an America where they could thrive and have their American business thrive.”
The Bruce parcel is one of the priciest on the coast — a 3,000-square-foot home near the property is listed for sale at $13.5 million, according to Zillow.com. The Bruce family paid just $1,225 in 1912 and were evicted in 1924.
The legal wrangling to fix the situation and return the property has taken years because no precedent exists. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would allow the transfer and make it tax-exempt.
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The initial deal involved the county leasing the property from the Bruces for $413,000 a year. The family had a two-year window to sell the property back to the county for $20 million.
Hahn said she would continue to push for improvements on the land, including rewriting a plaque on a monument that credits a white developer for creating the park. The county’s lifeguard headquarters building also sits on Bruce property, and Hahn hinted that she wants some sort of acknowledgment there as well.