Earlier this week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to return a stretch of beachfront land in Southern California to the descendants of a Black couple who purchased the land 97 years ago.
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“This was an opportunity for a leisure business to provide services to African Americans who wanted to come to the beach,” said Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson, a historian who has spent years researching the history of Black Americans in California beach towns. “They would be less harassed in this area because there was this African American business that could provide them with, you know, something to drink, or a place to change their clothes.”
Then jealous whites in the community started trying to run them out.
“So even while the business was successful, from day one, they were harassed with tactics to chase them out of the area,” Jefferson explained.
“The city said that it was taking this land– the eminent domain to build a park,” Jefferson said. “And the Bruces… and some of the other families… fought this effort, but they weren’t successful in the fight.”
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decided the land will be returned to Willa and Charles’ descendants.
According to the report, “the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office will file a report within 60 days with a plan and timeline to return the property to the Bruce family,” writes ABC News.
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