Bruce's Beach Plaque Replaced
May 01, 2024 07:51AM ● By Jeanne Fratello

(A photo from January, when the plaque at Bruce's Beach Park in Manhattan Beach was stolen from its base.)
Plaque Marks Historic Spot
Originally installed in February 2023, the plaque holds significant historical and cultural value both in Manhattan Beach and as a part of Black history in Southern California.
The plaque also marks the outgrowth of an extensive period of reflection on the history of Bruce's Beach.
In 2020, the city formed a task force to research the history of the city’s racially motivated eminent domain action to dispossess Willa and Charles Bruce and others of their property in the 1920s. The task force’s work resulted in the adoption of a formal history report on Bruce’s Beach. The City Council took action to draft language that was placed on the bronze plaque and installed at Bruce’s Beach Park.
The Bruce's Beach Park plaque was formally unveiled in March 2023. (See the full text of the wording on the plaque here.)
Bruce's Beach Background and Coverage

(Historical images of Charles and Willa Bruce, of beachgoers at Bruce's Beach resort, and of the former Bruce's Beach resort site. Photos via Bruce's Beach Task Force subcommittee.)
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, five 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.
Meanwhile, within Manhattan Beach, it was not until 2006 that the city publicly acknowledged this chapter of its history by naming the area east of the beachfront property Bruce's Beach Park and establishing a plaque in that (park) location. In the summer of 2020, a movement began growing for the city to take further action to recognize the Bruces.