The apology – Mayor Steve Napolitano apologizes to the families of Bruce’s Beach 

Mayor Steve Napolitano speaks at the unveiling of the new Bruce's Beach plaque on Saturday morning. Photo by Kevin Cody

by Mark McDermott 

The phone rang Saturday morning at Anna King Gonzales’ house in Los Angeles. She picked up to unexpectedly find Manhattan Beach Mayor Steve Napolitano on the line. 

Napolitano was calling from Bruce’s Beach Park, and he was excited. The two had spoken for the first time only three days earlier. Gonzales is the 90-year-old matriarch of a family directly descended from George and Ethel Prioleau, one of the African American families who a century ago were forced by the City of Manhattan Beach to leave the homes they’d built on the very land Napolitano was standing on. In about 30 minutes, the City would unveil a new plaque, replacing a plaque erected in 2006 that miscast the park’s history to make a city founder who’d been hostile to Bruce’s Beach resort appear to have been welcoming, a literal whitewashing of history: “In 1912, Mr. George Peck, one of our community’s co-founders, made it possible for the beach area below this site to be developed as Bruce’s Beach, the only beach resort in Los Angeles County for all people,” the 2006 plaque read.

In fact, Peck had roped off the beach and erected “no trespassing” signs” the weekend Bruce’s Beach resort opened. The resort was Black-owned, and its patrons were Black Angelenos. Peck’s actions were the beginning of what would culminate in the most tragic chapter in the City’s history.

A reckoning arrived three years ago in the form of the Black Lives Matter movement and a local parallel of that movement, called Justice for Bruce’s Beach, which revived what had become a largely forgotten history through a series of protests. The City responded by establishing a Bruce’s Beach Task Force. Out of that effort came an unvarnished telling of the actual history of Bruce’s Beach, as well as a new plaque that purported to better represent that history. 

The bronze Bruce’s Beach plaque unveiled on Saturday immediately became a magnet for criticism. Photo by Kevin Cody

Gonzales had been invited to the ceremony but declined. She had a few reasons. First, the invitation she received included a mock-up of the new plaque’s language, which included a perplexing error, referring to the Prioleaus as having lived “near” the land that is now the park. It was as if the Prioleaus were being forced off the land a second time, this time in the engraved words of the plaque. Gonzales’ attempt to reach the City regarding the error went unanswered. That, coupled with the City Council’s decision two years ago to not apologize but instead “acknowledge and condemn” the City’s racially motivated use of the power of eminent domain to dispossess the families in the 1920s —  it was all too much for Gonzales and her family.  

“Our family will not be in attendance,” she said last week. “We are concerned that attending would make us complicit in the City Council’s attempt to whitewash the atrocities of their past actions and our experiences with them.” 

When Napolino learned of the plaque error last Wednesday, he called Gonzales. They had a cordial conversation. The error had actually been made, Napolitano explained, by a grammarian who’d revised language the council had approved for the plaque. The plaque also includes the names of two Black families who lived adjacent to where the park is now and who were likewise forced to move, not through the City’s use of eminent domain, but through ongoing harassment. Hence the “near” was meant to cover all the families. 

He was open to correcting the plaque language, Napolitano told Gonzales, but it was too late to reschedule the ceremony. The mayor also noted that he’d long favored a formal apology —  he actually drafted one two years ago that was rejected by a majority of his colleagues — and intended to keep working towards it. He asked her to please reconsider attending. She politely declined. 

When Napolitano arrived at the park Saturday morning, he read the actual plaque. 

After being turned away from other coastal cities, Willa and Charles Bruce acquired property along the Strand in Manhattan Beach to create a beach resort for the Black community on February 19, 1912,” the plaque’s inscription begins. “By 1916, the resort known as ‘Bruce’s Beach’ was a thriving fixture for the Black community, with a restaurant, dancehall, changing rooms, and showers.” 

And then, as he read the second paragraph, Napolitano was amazed to find the error had been corrected, with the simple addition of two words, “in and,” preceding “near”:

“Soon after, several other Black families purchased property in and near the current location of the park. Major George Prioleau and Mrs. Ethel Prioleau, Elizabeth Patterson, Mary Sanders, Milton and Anna Johnson, John McCaskill and Elzia L. Irvin, and James and Lula Slaughter built homes on their property.” 

The plaque had, in a real sense, been written by committee —  first the task force’s History Advisory Board, then the Council, and then the grammarian, with input from city staff and the HAB. The invitation Gonzales had received included an in-progress version that had later been corrected. 

Napolitano informed Gonzales of this. She was pleased. He again asked her to come to the ceremony. He wanted to honor her family. She was still not interested in attending. Not unkindly, she asked him to keep working on an apology. 

“I will,” he told her. “Stay tuned.” 

A few hundred people arrived for the ceremony, which began at 10 a.m. Saturday. Napolitano had been mulling his remarks all week. He is a native son of Manhattan Beach who was first elected to council in 1992 at age 26, the youngest person to ever serve on the council. 

“I wanted to make sure I had input in the town I grew up in and loved,” he later recalled.

Over the course of three decades, Napolitano would become one of the most respected local elected officials in the City’s history, growing from a bright-eyed wunderkind to a seasoned political veteran along the way. He served as a deputy to former LA County Supervisor Don Knabe for 11 years before returning to the council in 2018. He’s been mayor a record six times. Saturday was his last public event before handing over the gavel Tuesday night, honoring the City’s mayoral rotation tradition, and so almost certainly represented his last time speaking as the mayor of his hometown. 

Bruce’s Beach matters a lot to Napolitano. He was central to the formation of the Task Force in 2020 and served as its co-chair. He also knew Robert Brigham, the late Mira Costa High School history teacher known as “Saint Bob,” whose 1956 master’s thesis at Fresno State, “Land Ownership and Occupancy by Negroes in Manhattan Beach,” was essential documentation that helped keep the faint flame of what had occurred at Bruce’s Beach alive in local memory.  

Two years ago, Napolitano had urged the Council to issue a formal apology. At that meeting, in April 2021, he’d begun by simply reading aloud what Frank Doherty, one of the City’s leaders in the 1920s had later admitted in a newspaper column titled “The Negro Problem” penned 20 years later.

“At one time, we thought that the Negro problem was going to stop our progress,” Doherty wrote. “And they erected a large building at the end of 27th Street using the first floor for a dressing room for bathing and the entire second floor for a dining room and kitchen…They came here in truckloads with banners flying, Bound for Manhattan Beach. We tried to buy them out, but they would not sell. There were several families in the blocks between 26th and 27th streets and between Strand and Highland. We had to acquire these two blocks to solve the problem, so we voted to condemn them and make a city park there. We had to protect ourselves. Our attorney advised members of the council never to admit the real purpose and establishment of the park, especially during the council meetings.”  

“I do support an apology for the actions taken by the city, as described by Frank Doherty,” Napolitano said at that time. “And no, I’m not some far-left pinko commie apologist for white snowflakes trying to get ahead in politics. That’s not why I do it. That’s how I think, that’s how I was raised…I think it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone can hear Frank Doherty’s words and disagree with that.” 

As he took the podium Saturday, Napolitano knew that what he had to say would undoubtedly anger many. 

“Have you ever felt like a Formula One race car driver? I feel like one this morning,” he told the crowd, a wry smile on his face. “Everyone’s here just to see how badly I can crash and burn.” 

Napolitano said it had been a long road to get to this moment. “Too long,” he said, noting that the unveiling was originally scheduled for February, which was Black History Month, but was rained out. 

But it’s just as well that we’re doing it this month, Women’s History Month, given the strong women who are at the center of the story of Bruce’s Beach,” the mayor said. “That, of course, includes Willa Bruce, who opened Bruce’s Lodge as a  place for Black Angelenos to come and enjoy the beach when there were few businesswomen, let alone Black businesswomen, at the time. There was Elizabeth Catley, the 19-year-old Black UCLA student who was arrested here in 1927 for swimming and who provided inspiration for the desegregation of California beaches. And there was Ethel Prioleau, who fought for the integration of Black nurses in County hospitals and the desegregation of public swimming  pools in Los Angeles.” 

Napolitano then introduced three women who took upon themselves a task that also required some fortitude —  Tyler St. Bernard, Isla Garraway, and Kristin Long Drew, members of the History Advisory Board who authored the report which gave the City the most complete account thus far of what occurred at Bruce’s Beach (a fourth member, Lindsey Fox, was unable to attend). The task force, particularly the HAB, faced many pressures, including being targeted by an anonymous group that harshly criticized their work. The work of compiling the history was also extremely labor intensive. 

“We volunteered to do it, recognizing the importance of it, but with no idea just how challenging it would be,” Long Drew said. 

Garraway joked that after she was appointed she emailed the council thanking them, and Napolitano emailed her back, only half-joking, “Let’s see if you feel that way when you’re done.” Garraway said she remains grateful to have participated in what she hopes contributes to a better future. 

“As a 30-year resident who has raised my family here in Manhattan Beach with my husband, I am grateful that the harms of past racial discrimination are being more accurately recounted in the city council’s plaque,” she said. “I am  grateful that we can move forward as a community with aspirations for a more inclusive Manhattan Beach  literally set in stone.” 

The volunteers completed much of their work in the earlier part of the pandemic, a time that was inherently fraught, and when, due to Covid restrictions, research was more difficult. Yet they still managed to uncover documentation of the events from the 1910s and 1920s that together created the fullest picture yet compiled of Bruce’s Beach, its inhabitants and opponents. The admission made by Frank Doherty that Napolitano quoted, as well as many other first-hand accounts, came from their report. 

Long Drew also acknowledged that the work of historians Alison Rose Jefferson, and particularly Robert Bringham were essential to their work. 

“It was Mr. Brigham’s 1956 master’s thesis that laid the foundation for this history, documenting official records that were largely unavailable to us due to COVID-19 restrictions, while also sharing first hand stories from many individuals who had passed on,” she said. “Mr. Brigham had the courage to ask difficult questions of his neighbors, knowing that their admissions might  cause embarrassment when reviewed through a modern lens. He even acknowledged that ‘They lived in a  different time,’ but as we’ve learned, that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”  

Napolitano returned to the podium and echoed that thought. 

We’re here today to unveil a new plaque to reconcile our history, confront uncomfortable truths, and recognize how far we’ve come while acknowledging how far we still need to go,” Napolitano said. “We’re not here to check a box, pat ourselves on the back, or declare mission accomplished.”  

“Let’s start with the obvious,” he said. “I am a white male. Or as Amy (councilwoman Howorth) likes to remind me, I am an older white male. I am more privileged than most, less privileged than others. I grew up here on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan Beach, where most of the other kids looked like me, talked like me and dressed like me. The TV shows we would watch, for the most part, reflected the same. At that time, diversity meant watching Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons. Manhattan Beach was and is overwhelmingly white, a fact rooted in the same prevailing attitude of the early part of the last century that led to the condemnation of properties here, along with redlining and racial covenants typical of many cities of that time that thankfully are no more. Money, not race, has become the barrier to entry, but the effects of those past events and practices are still with us today.” 

Napolitano said he has heard from “some people” throughout the process that questioned why the City was embarking on this task. 

“Some people took out two-page anonymous ads and waged a divisive war of disinformation and fear about the city’s efforts over the past three years,” he said. “Some people. Show me a town that doesn’t have ‘some people.’ We’re always going to have ‘some people’ who just don’t want to talk about these things, who just want them to go away.” 

He looked up from the podium. “Well,” he said. “Some people will never learn.” 

Napolitano said others had issued attacks from an opposing perspective, arguing that a plaque is not enough, that the City remains racist, and its efforts are more about Councilmembers’ attempts to be “White saviors” projecting their guilt. 

“It goes to show that we’re never going to please some people, some of whom stood on this very spot 16 years ago in celebration of nothing more  than a renaming of this park and the placement of a grossly inaccurate plaque that wrongly glorified a White man more than the Black pioneers  who lost their property here,” he said. 

“But enough about some people. I’m here to talk about the rest of us. The rest of us know Manhattan Beach is unequivocally not a racist city in any way, shape or form. That doesn’t mean racist things can’t happen here.  Anyone can say or do something racist. But that doesn’t mean the city or its residents are racist… We are a welcoming, loving, inclusive community that has stood together,  time and again, to mourn tragedies and stand up and speak out against  hate, injustice and intolerance.” 

The community’s effort to face the “unvarnished” history of Bruce’s Beach, the mayor said, is in keeping with its larger character. He acknowledged that the process was imperfect, but praised all involved for withstanding public scrutiny, and noted that the $350,000 public art piece that will eventually stand alongside the plaque shows how deeply invested the City is in making the history of Bruce’s Beach a recognized part of its own larger history. 

“We didn’t do these things because of what some people think,” Napolitano said. “We did them because it was the right thing to do, regardless of what some people think.” 

The mayor then talked about his conversations with Anna King Gonzales. He said she and her family still hoped for an apology. 

“So do I,” he said. “We have acknowledged and condemned but we haven’t apologized. It’s a  simple difference but with a much deeper meaning. We don’t teach our children to acknowledge and condemn the things they do wrong. We teach them to say they’re sorry…I’ve yet to hear a good reason not to do it.” 

Napolitano noted that governments have apologized for historic wrongs before, including President Ronald Reagan’s apology to Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII. He said an apology doesn’t mean anyone today is responsible for what occurred a century ago, nor does it mean everyone in the city at that time bore responsibility. 

“I’ve heard all the excuses — the families were compensated, it was a long time ago, an apology is an admission of guilt, an apology will mean lawsuits. Nonsense, all of them,” he said.  “I can apologize on my own, and I do. I personally apologize to the Bruces,  the Prioleaus, the Pattersons, the Sanders, the Johnsons, the McCaskills, the Irvins, and the Slaughters, for the wrongful, racially motivated taking of their property by this city nearly 100 years ago. That wasn’t hard, folks.” 

The mayor acknowledged that his personal apology was not enough, that for it to carry greater meaning, an apology needed to come from the City. After the November election, that appears more likely, with a majority of the Council now appearing to be in support of such an action. 

“Let’s be that council,” Napolitano said. “Let’s stop the nonsense and start the healing — because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of what some people think.” 

The mayor received a rousing applause, which was followed by a moment of silence before the plaque was unveiled. But 20 miles north, in her home in Los Angeles, Anna King Gonzales watched the accounts of the ceremony on television, and read news stories that came out the next day. She was not entirely impressed. 

This is where the reconciliation of historic wrongs sometimes goes beyond what words can do. Gonzales’ grandparents are not faint actors in a faded history to her. Gonzales is the closest person there is to a direct link to the families of Bruce’s Beach. She was born and grew up in her grandparents’ home, in Los Angeles, far removed from the beach but not from the memory of the family’s dispossession at the hands of the City of Manhattan Beach. Her grandfather, George Prioleau, died in 1927, a year after losing the family home at Bruce’s Beach. Gonzales was born six years later. 

“I lived with my grandmother and I heard her talk about many things, and Manhattan Beach was one of those things,” she said.  “I remember her saying, ‘Unfortunately, we can’t go down to the beach like we used to when your mother was a little girl. Because that property was taken from us.’” 

The Prioleaus were, in fact, heroic actors in history. He was born a slave and against all odds obtained his theology degree and rose to prominence as a professor and an African Methodist Episcopal pastor. In 1889, President Grover Cleveland appointed him chaplain of the 9th Cavalry, the all-Black regiment which served on the Western frontier known as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”  A decade later, the 9th Cavalry was relocated to the South for military operations in Cuba and the Caribbean during the Spanish-American War. Prioleau contracted malaria and never made it to Cuba, but was horrified at the racist treatment Black war heroes received upon their return. At a time when it was unheard of within military ranks, much less society at large, he emerged as an outspoken critic of the racism and segregation his troops endured. Both he and Ethel were early supporters of the NAACP; she would later help lead a successful fight to end segregation practices for nurses at LA County hospitals and in public pools in Los Angeles.  

Gonzales has watched much of the City’s proceedings regarding Bruce’s Beach from afar. She was unhappy when the Council disbanded the task force, and rewrote a longer and fuller telling of the history the Advisory Board originally proposed for the plaque. That larger history, with a specific telling of the Prioleau family story and photos of the Prioleaus, ended up as part of LA County’s plaque —  which stands on the land that the County also first transferred back to the Bruce family in a historic act of reparations, and earlier this year paid the Bruce family $20 million to buy back. 

Gonzales said that she hopes for three things. The first is an accurate inscription on the plaque, which has been done; the second is a formal apology, which appears likely to happen; the third is reparations. 

“In the long shot, I would like to see something done legally,” she said. “But I doubt whether that will ever happen in my generation. I mean, I’m 90 years old. I am glad I was here long enough to help the rest of the Prioleau family get this thing going, but I don’t know whether I’ll be around to see anything else happen with it.” 

The issue of reparations, Gonzales said, isn’t simply about money. She said the issue brings to mind the words of Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Kavon Ward, the founder of Justice for Bruce’s Beach, also believes reparations are the missing part of the City’s response. 

“I think the apology, plaque and art installation are all performative,” Ward said. “It means nothing if it isn’t followed up with something of substance. True reparative justice entails them actually asking the families harmed what they consider repair to be, and then giving them what they want.” 

Gonzales also expressed this wish in her conversation with Napolitano, whom she praised for the sincerity of his effort. Napolitano was also warmed by his exchange with the family matriarch, whom he described as “firm, but nice” in her demands. 

Ultimately, Napolitano’s hope is the City’s efforts will begin a new chapter. Larger issues of social or reparative justice remain a work in progress, society-wide. But the first step is always something smaller, like a phone call, or an apology.

“Basic decency,” he said, “is what this is about.” 

Politics is often described as the art of the possible, and at present, the City under his leadership appears to have reached as close to what it is capable of doing as possible. The example of the County, however, remains as a contrast. Supervisor Janice Hahn, in leading a legislative effort that eventually won the support of the California Senate, Assembly, and the Governor and resulted in the Bruce family regaining control of its land, went beyond what many believed was possible. 

“We’re not looking for $20 million,” said Patricia Patton, a great-granddaughter of the Prioleaus. “God bless the Bruces, but they had a business and a large property.  And we have never beat the drum or been yelling that we want money. We do want proper acknowledgment in the form of an apology.”

On Tuesday night, at the end of the City Council meeting, Councilperson David Lesser placed an item on the April 4 agenda. The council will consider a formal apology.

Los Angeles Times photographer Jay L. Clendenin and columnist Erika D. Smith are among journalists from around the world who have written about Bruce’s Beach in recent years.

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