Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 42

Land Reparations: The Story of Bruce's Beach

Happy Monday! Lot’s of reparations-related news over the past few days, so I hope you get to dig into a few of these stories.

The Hot Takes section today highlights the monumental decision made last week in California to give back a stretch of land that was stolen from a Black family.

Some other stories you should check out:

• This NBC LA piece that covers the Bruce’s Beach story. Remember our Hot Takes section also goes into further detail on this.

• This Fast Company piece that covers the recent paper from Duke and Insight CCED on the harmful narratives that help widen the racial wealth gap.

• This New York Times column that answers a reader who is grappling what to do with a 200 year old framed picture of her ancestor that owned Black people.

• This Washington Post investigative piece on the Pandora Papers (different from the Panama Papers) that detail more than 29,000 offshore accounts, 130 of which are people listed as billionaires by Forbes,

• This Aspen Institute book that is a collection of essays from experts on the different ways we should be thinking about building wealth in the US.

• This NPR write-up of the Legacy Museum from Bryan Stevenson and the Equali Justice Initiatve which has been expanded by 40,000 square feet.

With radical love,
Trevor

National News

Bloomberg: Freddie Mac Finds ‘Pervasive’ Bias in Home Appraisal Industry

WAMU: Tracking Local Reparations Efforts In The U.S.

Fast Company: The deep-rooted myth of meritocracy is widening the racial wealth gap

New York Times: What Should I Do With My Portrait of a Slaveholding Ancestor?

Washington Post: Billions Hidden Beyond Reach

NPR: Museum tracing legacy of slavery in America marks moment for 'truth-telling'

Bloomberg: What Counting Every Monument in the U.S. Adds Up To

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: House Build Back Better Legislation Advances Racial Equity

Aspen Institute: The Future of Building Wealth

CNN: The myths about slavery that still hold America captive

The Nation: The Politician-Scholar

National African-American Reparations Commission: Making a case for Reparations: Keynote by Nkechi Taifa, Esq. at the 2021 NJSC NAACP Convention

MSNBC: Jelani Cobb: Tulsa just one of many places race massacres targeted Black Americans

Regional News

NBC Los Angeles: Governor Signs Bruce's Beach Bill in Move to Transfer Seized Property to Black Owners' Family

Newsweek: School Board Passes Code to Punish Teachers Over Critical Race Theory After Funding Threat

News Observer: N.C. school board passes strict rules for teaching about race after threat to cut funding

Christian Science Monitor: Reparations milestone: California returns land to Black family

The Root: Lawsuit Over Confederate Monument in Tuskegee, Ala. Currently Stalled in Court

KUAR: Who do Americans honor most? The National Monument Audit wants to find out

Baltimore Sun: In Baltimore, reparations can start with COVID relief funds

KJRH: Tulsa Race Massacre survivors await judges decision

Boston Globe: Boston sheds more light on its relationship to slavery

Hot Takes

Last week, Governor Newsom, surronded by advocates, assemblymembers, journalists, and most importantly, descendants of those who were wronged, signed one of the most impactful bills in the fight for redress in recent history.

SB796 enables Los Angeles County to immediately begin the land transfer of a price piece of beachfront real estate back to the descendants of those the state stole it from.

Known as Bruce’s Beach, the land was bought by Willa and Charles Bruce in 1912 for $1,225 and would eventually become a safe haven for Black beach-goers who were prohibited from enjoyinhg the mostly white-only beach spaces across the state.

The Bruce’s endured years of racism and violence in the years following their purchase. The Ku Klux Klan tried to start a fire under the main deck at Bruce’s Beach and would later go on to burn down a nearby home owned by a Black family. White antagonist posted “no trespassing,” signs and slashed tires of Black family so they would avoid the area. Then, in 1924, Manhattan Beach city officials seized their property, stating that they needed the plot of land for a park, but leaving it vacant for decades. The Bruce’s were given $14,000 for the land by the city and ended up having to relocate to the east side of Los Angeles where they worked as cooks for other people’s diners until their death.

Today, the plot of land is estimated to be worth $75 million, and is situated in what is now an upscale Los Angeles seaside suburb with an overwhelmingly white population of 35,000.

“This is a reckoning that has been long overdue,” Anthony Bruce, a 38-year-old great-great-grandson told the Guardian. "For me and the generations after, this would mean an inheritance — and that internal security of know that I come from somewhere, that I come from a people.”

State Senator Steve Bradford, who sits on the California reparations task force, told CNN that “this is what reparations look like.” In an article earlier this year, County supervisor Janice Hahn said that the descendants of the Bruce’s “almost certainly would have been millionaires if they had been able to keep their property and successful business.”

In ‘What we Get Wrong about Closing the Racial Wealth Gap,’ the authors state that “while wealth begets wealth, typically no wealth begets no wealth, regardless of how astute a money manager the person may be.” For so long, one of the harmful narratives that have been peddled regarding Black people and money is that they are frivolous spenders who would be better off if they made better financial choices, when the discussion should be more focused on inheritance.

White families are twice as likely to receive an inheritance as Black families according to the Economic Policy Institute, and that inheritance is nearly three times as much. At the median, an inheritance increases wealth by more than $100,000 for white families and only $4,000 for Black families.

Between 2010 to 2019, white households where the head of household were between the ages of 55 and 64 years old received inheritances equal to $101,354, while Black households within the same age range received $12,623, according to the Center for American Progress.

Professors Hamilton and Darity have found that “inheritance, bequests and in-vivo transfer account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other behavioral, demographic, or socioeconomic indicator.”

The story of Bruce’s Beach is not just a story about property. It’s also a story about stolen wealth and opportunity. What would life had been like for Willa and Charles Bruce if they had gotten to keep their land? What would live had been like for their children and grandchildren? No one can really answer that question, but with this monumental passage, we know that the heirs of the Bruces will have the power and autonomy to now choose their own path.