Bruce’s Beach returned to family nearly a century after seizure
A prime beachfront resort seized from its black owners nearly 100 years ago has been returned to their descendants by officials in Los Angeles. Bruce’s Beach was purchased in 1912 to create a beach resort for black people at a time of racial segregation in southern California. Located in the desirable city of Manhattan Beach, it was forcibly taken by the local council in 1924. But on Tuesday, Los Angeles officials voted to return the land to the family. Willa and Charles Bruce bought the two lots of land for $1,225 in 1912. The beach is now worth an estimated $20m (£16.45m). Willa told a reporter at the time: “Wherever we have tried to buy land for a beach resort, we have been refused, but I own this land and I am going to keep it.” Over the next decade, Bruce’s Beach became a “citadel for African Americans coming there for leisure from all over the rest of southern California,” family spokesman Chief Duane Yellow Feather told the BBC last year.(BBC)…[+]