Bruce's Beach, condemned for a park that was never built

In 1912 Willa and Charles Bruce bought a lot on the Strand at 26th Street in Manhattan Beach and opened a bathhouse, cafe and dance hall - one of very few places on the Southern California coast where Black families could use the beach. Black landowners bought nearby lots and a small resort community formed.

White neighbours and the local Ku Klux Klan responded with harassment: vandalism, signs and arson attempts, cars with slashed tyres, a campaign to have the beach access blocked. When that failed to move the Bruces, the city turned to law. In 1924 Manhattan Beach condemned their property and the neighbouring Black-owned lots by eminent domain, declaring the land needed for a public park. The Bruces fought the valuation and were paid a fraction of what they had asked. The park was not built; the land sat empty for decades, and a beach the Bruces could no longer use was eventually developed around it.

In April 2021 the county board of supervisors began the process; California passed Senate Bill 796 that September to lift the restrictions blocking a transfer; and on 20 July 2022 the two parcels - by then holding a county lifeguard training facility - were returned to Marcus and Derrick Bruce, the great-grandsons of Charles and Willa Bruce. It is one of very few returns of land taken this way anywhere in the United States.