L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell have announced details of a precedent-setting plan to transfer the Bruce's Beach beachfront property to descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce.

The proposal will be brought before the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for a vote on Tuesday, June 28.

According to the proposed plan, county staff has negotiated a transfer agreement to return the property to the Bruce family descendants, and has created a 24-month lease agreement, with an annual rent of $413,000 plus responsibility for all operation and maintenance costs, to lease the property back to the county. The lease agreement includes an option for the county to purchase back the land for $20 million.

The county has identified Marcus and Derrick Bruce, the great-grandsons of Charles and Willa
Bruce, as the legal heirs. Marcus and Derrick Bruce have formed a Bruce Family LLC to hold the property upon transfer by the county.

Mitchell released a statement that read as follows: "This land should have never been taken from the Bruce family over 90 years ago. Now, we are on the precipice of redemption and justice that is long overdue. I am proud to author this motion with Supervisor Hahn. Getting to this point has required sacrifices from the Bruce family that can never be repaid, it has taken a global coalition of activists who have fought for years to bring justice to the Bruce family, and has required support from the State with the passage of Senate Bill 796 to allow the County to legally be able to return the land. The County has done its due diligence to confirm the legal heirs and engage them in reaching an agreement for returning the land. The directives in this motion make the return of the land to the Bruce family heirs possible and will allow the Bruce family to realize the generational wealth previously denied them. Although we cannot change the past, we have a responsibility to learn from it and to do what is right today. Now it is on the County to get this done. I look forward to standing with my colleagues on the right side of history.”

"At long last, the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce will begin rebuilding the wealth that has been denied to generations of Bruces for nearly a century," said Hahn in a tweet on Thursday morning. "We will never be able to rectify the injustice that was inflicted upon the Bruce family, but this is a start."

Bruce's Beach Background

Since 2020, the city of Manhattan Beach has engaged in an emotional debate over how - or how much - to recognize Willa and Charles Bruce, pioneering Black business owners who created a thriving resort for Black beach-goers in Manhattan Beach in the 1920s. 

By the mid-1920s, with pressure from community members who did not want Black beachgoers in town, Manhattan Beach's Board of Trustees (a precursor to the modern city council) claimed the land under eminent domain, condemning the lots and displacing the Bruce family as well as other families who had settled in the area. (Of the 30 lots condemned, six were owned by five Black families and had been developed with cottages, homes, or, in the Bruces’ case, a two-story building for their business; and the remaining 25 lots were owned by White property owners that had no structures built upon them and were uninhabited.)

The land was acquired by the state of California in 1948, and was transferred to L.A. County in 1995. The beachfront property the Bruce family once owned is now the site of the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Training Headquarters. 

Despite creating a Bruce's Beach Task Force and adopting a history report created by the task force, the Manhattan Beach City Council has struggled for nearly a year with finding compromise on the wording, location, and style for a new marker honoring Bruce's Beach and the Bruce family.

The City Council approved the plaque language on March 10 and the plaque design on April 19.

Also in March, the City Council reaffirmed its policy disallowing special event permits at Bruce's Beach Park, going against a recommendation of the city's Parks and Rec Commission. Councilmembers voted 4-1 to uphold the current special events policy that excludes Bruce's Beach as well as Larsson Parkette and 8th Street Parkette from the permitting process.

This year on Juneteenth was a relatively quiet day at Bruce's Beach Park, with just a scattering of families enjoying picnics and with contracted security staff on hand.