Janice Hahn demonstrates how history should be reversed, urging those to give back land that have been wrongfully taken from the black community alongside their descendants.
The land that she is asking to be given back is a plot worth $72 million, located on a beachfront.
She tells TMZ reporters that other local governments should be taking the same precautions as her, following her footsteps.
Hahn tells the public that she thinks this is the “first time in our nation that a government has given land back to an African American family to make amends for past discrimination and atrocities and policies that were enacted, that really limited African Americans’ ability to own businesses, to own property, to even buy homes in certain neighborhoods.
“This is a very small step towards what I think this whole country should be doing – and that is working to repair amends with the African Americans in this country.”
She even apologized for the wrongdoings that have been conceived throughout history, saying that the apology should be for African Americans and the indigenous people who lived here before their land was wrongfully taken away from them.
Growing up in the Los Angeles county herself, she says that she was never exposed to the segregation and discrimination of African Americans, stating that “we never saw drinking fountains that were labelled colored or white… LA County sort of escaped some of these horrible injustices that were inflicted on African Americans in our own country.
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She realized that it was happening in their own back yard, seeing that there were many land transfers happening in Manhattan Beach. Ever since then, she’s been trying to find the origins and plans to give the land back to its rightful owners.
The Bruce couple, Willa and Charles Bruce, has descendants who built a seaside resort for those of their race.
The Bruces came from New Mexico during the early 1900s, being one of the first black people to settle in the city of Manhattan Beach. Many people have gotten a hold of their story, saying that what happened to the family was injustice.
The site where the land is now located is on Bruce Beach, containing a lodge, cafe, dance hall, dressing tents, and so forth.
They were harassed by white neighbors alongside the Ku Klux Clan, and they were refused of buying land when trying to apply for it. They fought for their case, but lost. As a result, they had to leave their beach and lost their business.
Hahn says that “The Bruces had their California dream stolen from them.”
She also says that it has been a scar on the family in multitudes of ways: especially on finances and on emotions.