Anthony Bruce holds a bill "Bruce's Beach Bill" after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
Bruce’s Beach marked the first time on record that a Black American family was returned land stolen from their ancestors by racial terrorists under the guise of government intervention. Now the case is giving other Black families hope they can recover the lands they say are rightfully theirs.
Among them are twin brothers Jonathan and Matthew Burgess. They said their family is the rightful owner of a portion of the land which makes up Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, California — land that was wrongfully taken by the state in 1947.
“Ultimately, our goal is to have our land returned, but first to recognize what actually took place,” Jonathan Burgess told USA Today. He also furnished documents that he says support his case.
“If we as Americans want to truly heal our nation and atone for what happened to Black people that were formerly enslaved and descendants of slaves, we’ve got to first tell the truth, as difficult as (that) may be,” Burgess continued.
He isn’t an anomaly.
Black families being forced off their land through government seizure and/or violence is a very common story.
Bruce’s Beach – which was purchased by Willa and Charles Bruce in 1912 – was once the only beachfront resort Black people could go to. In 1924, it was taken from the Bruce family by the city council using eminent domain. Officials said they needed the land to build a park but the land remained untouched for years.
Signed back over to the Bruce family by California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 30. 2021, the property is now worth more than $75 million as it sits in a very wealthy part of Santa Monica Bay.
That is an anomaly.
While Black families have suffered the injustices of racism and discrimination for all of their existence in America, before Bruce’s Beach, there had never been a case in which their land was actually returned by the very government that took it a century prior.
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Black people across the country are hoping Bruce’s Beach will set the precedent needed so the result they achieved can become more common.
Kevon Ward co-founded Where Is My Land, an advocacy group that seeks to help Black families in their fight for justice concerning land returns. One of the cases they are working on includes the claim by a Black entrepreneur that the Cleveland Clinic took some of his family’s property in the 1980s. Another involves getting restitution for the descendants of families whose homes were destroyed in Palm Springs in the 1950s and ’60s.
“I’m a little bit more cautiously optimistic here in California because the governor has already told folks where he stands on redress and reparations and then the state Legislature has done a phenomenal job with the Bruce’s Beach situation,” Ward said.
Rosalind Alexander-Kasparik is the descendant of Daniel Alexander, a former slave, horse breeder and trainer. Daniel started a historic farm in 1847, which the family still owns.
A part of their family’s Texas farm was taken by the state using eminent domain to expand a highway in 1968. She is fighting to stop it from happening again and working with Where Is My Land to do so. Bruce’s Beach gives her hope.
“It was a very, very nice little pick-me-up with the Bruce’s Beach thing, even as far away as Texas, because it was a family that actually did get their land back,” said Alexander-Kasparik. “Here was a family that actually did meet at least some of the promise of reparations. Here was a family that prevailed and actually got a little bit back of what was taken.”
It is something the Bruce family is well aware of.
“There are other families waiting for this very day, to have their land returned to them,” said Patricia Bruce, Willa and Charles’ cousin.
Anthony Bruce, 38, is the great-great-grandson of Willa and Charles. He said the return of their land was “long overdue.”
“For me and the generations after, this would mean an inheritance – and that internal security of knowing that I come from somewhere, that I come from a people,” Anthony told The Guardian.
PHOTO: Anthony Bruce holds a bill “Bruce’s Beach Bill” after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, in Manhattan Beach, Calif., that would help clear the way for Los Angeles County to return a piece of Manhattan Beach coastline to the descendants of a Black family who had the land stripped away by the city nearly a century ago, (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
