William
Pickens
III with
his son
John on
their
private
beach.
(Photo
credit...Jon
Henry) |
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Brooke
Williams
and her
daughter,
Ada.
(Photo
credit...Jon
Henry) |
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Advocates
push
national
movement
for land
return
to
Blacks
after
victory
in
California
By
Erica
Werner,
Troy
McMullen
washingtonpost.com
MANHATTAN
BEACH,
Calif. -
A Black
family’s
successful
fight to
reclaim
a
picturesque
stretch
of
Southern
California
shoreline
has
ignited
a
national
movement,
with
activists
eyeing
White-owned
properties
around
the
country
they say
rightfully
belong
to
African
Americans.
A
landmark
law
signed
by
California
Gov.
Gavin
Newsom
(D) on
Sept. 30
provided
for a
seaside
park in
Manhattan
Beach to
be
returned
to the
Bruce
family,
which
owned
the land
before
the city
used
eminent
domain
to seize
it in
1924.
The
victory
was
hailed
as a
watershed
moment,
the
first
example
of Black
people
forcing
the
return
of
property
that was
taken
from
them by
one
means or
another,
often
violently,
over the
years.
At
the same
time it
raised a
question:
Would
the
Bruce’s
Beach
case be
a
one-off,
or a
tipping
point in
a
national
struggle
over
Black
land
ownership?
Activists
and
scholars
say
there
are
other
similar
cases
nationwide,
but
proving
them —
and
getting
the
current
property
owners
to
cooperate
— will
be a
different
matter,
forcing
another
chapter
in the
nation’s
racial
reckoning
and
raising
thorny
questions
about
how to
right
past
wrongs.
“The
reason
it’s
getting
so much
attention
now is
there’s
been a
precedent
set and
that’s
what’s
giving
hope to
other
families,”
said
Kavon
Ward,
who
helped
lead the
successful
fight on
behalf
of the
Bruce
family
and has
co-founded
a group
called
Where Is
My Land
aimed at
advocating
for
other
Black
people
who are
trying
to
reclaim
lost and
stolen
land.
“This is
just the
beginning.”
Ward
said she
has
already
heard
from
more
than 100
people
eager to
make the
case
that
they
have a
rightful
claim to
property
now
occupied
by
others.
Her
group is
turning
its
attention
to a
tract of
land in
Cleveland
now
partly
owned by
the
Cleveland
Clinic
that
activists
say
rightfully
belongs
to
former
businessman
Winston
E.
Willis.
As with
the
Bruce
case in
California,
advocates
say,
Willis
was
deprived
not just
of his
property
but also
of
decades
of
potential
prosperity
— a
scenario
that,
repeated
many
times
over,
lies at
the root
of the
wealth
gap
between
Whites
and
African
Americans.
But
the
Cleveland
case,
along
with
many
others,
may be
difficult
to press
to a
successful
conclusion,
experts
said.
Bruce’s
Beach
offered
a
clear-cut
case
where a
family’s
historical
claim to
a
property
was well
documented.
The spot
in
question
was once
home to
a
thriving
African
American
resort
owned by
Charles
and
Willa
Bruce,
who
endured
years of
harassment
from
White
neighbors
—
including
threats
and
intimidation
from the
Ku Klux
Klan —
before
the city
of
Manhattan
Beach
used
eminent
domain
to oust
them
entirely.
The
Bruces
were
paid a
pittance
and told
a park
would be
built on
the
site,
but the
property
lay
vacant
until it
was
transferred
to the
state in
1948,
and
subsequently
to Los
Angeles
County.
In
recent
years
that
history
has
gotten
more
attention,
and
after
Ward
formed
the
group
Justice
for
Bruce’s
Beach in
2020, a
county
supervisor
took an
interest
in the
case, as
did
state
officials.
It still
took
months
of
advocacy
to get
the land
back for
the
Bruce
family,
and even
required
a change
in state
law to
allow
L.A.
County
to move
forward
with the
land
transfer.
Few
other
cases
will be
so
straightforward,
said
William
A.
Darity
Jr., a
scholar
at Duke
University
who
co-authored
a book
on
reparations
published
last
year.
“I
just
think
there
are
thousands
of these
cases,
and a
very
small
percentage
of them
have the
degree
of
specificity
that the
Bruce
Beach
case
does
where
you know
exactly
who
owned
the
property,
how it
was
taken
and by
whom,”
Darity
said.
Darity
pointed
to
examples
such as
the
Tulsa
Race
Massacre
of 1921,
where
White
mobs
destroyed
a Black
business
district,
killing
and
injuring
hundreds
of
residents
and
displacing
many
more. It
would be
extremely
difficult
to
untangle
how all
the
properties
in
question
changed
hands,
Darity
said.
Determining
how to
get the
current
owners
to
return
the
properties
or pay
compensation
would
create
even
more
hurdles.
Still,
the
developments
at
Bruce’s
Beach
have
given
hope to
Aundra
Willis
Carrasco,
whose
brother
Winston
is 82
and
residing
at an
assisted-living
facility
in
Cleveland
as his
sister
works to
publicize
his
case.
According
to
Willis
Carrasco,
Winston
Willis
owned
multiple
thriving
businesses
around
105th
Street
and
Euclid
Avenue
in
Cleveland
beginning
in 1968,
before
being
forced
out
through
a
combination
of
illegal
and
fraudulent
tactics
by
private
developers
and city
officials
and
judges
who
conspired
with
them.
The
world-renowned
Cleveland
Clinic
now
occupies
much of
that
prime
real
estate.
“It
should
be
surrounded
by the
yellow
tape
they use
in law
enforcement
because
105th
and
Euclid
is the
scene of
a
crime,”
Willis
Carrasco
said in
an
interview.
“They
never
paid him
for it,
and it
was
taken
from him
illegally.”
A
spokeswoman
for the
Cleveland
Clinic
said it
had no
information,
while a
city
spokeswoman
did not
respond
to
requests
for
comment.
Ward
said
Where Is
My Land
was
considering
several
possible
paths
for
moving
forward
with the
Willis
case in
Cleveland
but
declined
to
discuss
them
publicly
at this
point.
Elsewhere,
too,
African
Americans
and
their
advocates
are
pressing
communities
to
reckon
with and
reconcile
a
history
of
housing
policies
that
have
disproportionately
harmed
Black
Americans.
Black
people
are far
less
likely
than
Whites
to own
land and
homes
and the
generational
wealth
that
goes
with
them,
and the
situation
has
shown
little
sign of
improvement.
Black
homeownership
rates
are
hovering
at their
lowest
levels
since
the
passage
of the
Fair
Housing
Act in
1968,
reaching
46.4
percent
in the
first
quarter
of this
year
compared
to 75.8
percent
of White
families,
according
to
census
data.
“This is
an
important
social
movement
that is
challenging
this
nation
to
really,
really
think
about
how to
right
these
historic
wrongs,”
said
Emmitt
Y. Riley
III,
associate
professor
of
Africana
studies
and
political
science
at
DePauw
University.
“I think
this
starts
the
conversation,
because
no one I
think
can
reasonably
conclude
that in
a
country
that has
been
organized
around
racial
inequality,
that
somehow
Blacks
were not
exploited
for
their
property.”
Riley
and
others
questioned
whether
White
Americans
are
ready to
confront
the
issue in
a
serious
way,
even
after
George
Floyd’s
murder
in 2020
and the
growing
public
awareness
of the
nation’s
history
of
racism
in
policing
tactics
and
other
policies.
In
some
cases,
though,
elected
officials
are
responding
to some
degree.
In
Minneapolis,
lawmakers
have
passed
the
Minneapolis
2040
Plan,
ambitious
housing
legislation
that
includes
“Freeway
Remediation,”
a
provision
that
acknowledges
the
“disparate
impact”
freeway
construction
in the
city
historically
has had
on
communities
of
color.
The plan
calls
for
compensating
Black
families
and
descendants
affected
by the
razing
of
communities
of color
to build
highways.
Similarly,
officials
in
Lansing,
Mich.,
are
exploring
the
impact
of
Interstate
496 on
the
communities
razed to
construct
it.
Meanwhile,
housing
advocacy
groups
in some
cities,
including
Los
Angeles,
Seattle
and
Boston,
have
launched
mapping
projects
that
trace
the
history
of
racial
covenants
in their
cities.
The
legal
language
— which
typically
restricted
selling
a home
to
anyone
who
wasn’t
White —
was used
in
cities
across
the
United
States
to keep
neighborhoods
segregated.
Housing
advocates
are also
targeting
the
harmful
effects
of
redlining,
the
practice
in which
banks
declined
to lend
in
certain
areas,
often
lower-income
and
minority
neighborhoods.
In
Minneapolis,
for
example,
homes in
formerly
redlined
areas
underperform
the
city’s
$266,500
median
assessed
value by
25
percent,
according
to data
from the
Mapping
Prejudice
Project.
After
the
attention
garnered
by the
Bruce
family’s
experience,
California
set up a
task
force to
study
and
recommend
reparations
for
African
Americans.
The
two-year
process
is meant
to
address
the
harms of
slavery
and
systemic
racism,
according
to the
California
governor’s
office.
The
Bruce
family,
meanwhile,
has
chosen
for now
to lease
its
property
in
Manhattan
Beach
back to
Los
Angeles
County,
though
terms
have not
been
made
public.
The
property
is
occupied
by a
small
grassy
park and
a
lifeguard
station,
and on a
recent
morning
the
scene
was
idyllic
as
surfers
waded
into
waves of
the
Pacific
and
children
played
in the
park. A
plaque
at the
site
includes
some of
the
history
of the
Bruce
family.
Los
Angeles
County
Supervisor
Janice
Hahn
said the
economic
harm
done by
seizing
the land
in the
1920s is
practically
incalculable.
Hahn
pointed
to
Manhattan
Beach’s
affluence
today.
The
median
price of
a home
in the
town of
35,000
residents
— where
African
Americans
make up
less
than 1
percent
of the
population
—
reached
a record
$2.9
million
in
August.
“It’s
not an
exaggeration
to say
that
they
would
have
been
millionaires
if they
had been
able to
hold on
to their
property
and
their
successful
business,”
Hahn
said.
“This
was an
injustice
inflicted
not just
upon
Willa
and
Charles
Bruce,
but on
generations
of their
descendants.”
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