The bronze plaque was put in final February to acknowledge the darkish historical past of a Southern California seashore metropolis that ran a Black household out of city, shattering their haven for Black beachgoers. Now that plaque is gone.
Manhattan Seaside police are asking for the general public’s assist in finding the practically year-old plaque from Bruce’s Seaside that was stolen this week — stripped from its giant plinth.
The Manhattan Seaside Police Division was made conscious of the lacking plaque Monday afternoon and opened an investigation, mentioned Alexandria Latragna, town’s communication and civic engagement supervisor.
A Manhattan Seaside customer described the theft as “including insult to harm.” Rebecca McCullough informed KTLA, “The African American neighborhood has suffered loss and stealing for thus many centuries, and that is only a actual disheartening incidence.”
This newly constructed plaque changed an outdated one which activists mentioned glossed over the ugly historical past.
In 1912, Willa Bruce bought the primary of two tons between twenty sixth and twenty seventh streets alongside the Strand in Manhattan Seaside to create a seashore resort for the Black neighborhood often known as Bruce’s Seaside. A couple of extra Black households purchased and constructed their very own cottages by the ocean.
The neighborhood was harassed by white neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan, a sort hostility that was frequent on the time. However when it was clear the harassment didn’t deter the households, Manhattan Seaside metropolis officers condemned the neighborhood in 1924 and seized greater than two dozen properties by eminent area. Their reasoning? An pressing want for a public park.
In 2020, native activists created a petition and demanded that town make a brand new plaque, subject a public assertion and provides the land again to the Bruce household.
Manhattan Seaside commenced a overview of the historical past of Bruce’s Seaside, and shaped a job drive to analysis town’s wrongdoing. The group’s work resulted in a report outlining the seashore’s historical past, out there on town’s web site, in addition to the textual content for the plaque.
Town returned the land to the Bruces’ descendants in July 2022. The household offered it again to L.A. County just a few months later for $20 million. In March, town unveiled the monument and issued an apology.
There new plaque has critics. They are saying its textual content nonetheless whitewashes the historical past of Bruce’s Seaside.
The Police Division is urging anybody with data relating to the theft to contact Sgt. Taylor Klosowski at (310) 802-5123. Data may be supplied anonymously by Los Angeles Regional Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477; telephone strains are encrypted, and calls usually are not recorded.
The stolen plaque is the newest in a string of troubling robberies that embrace 100 bronze plaques from the Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery in Carson and plaques ripped off the Fishing Trade Memorial in San Pedro.
