beachfront racism along santa monica bay

Another posting today that doesn't involve two wheels. Indeed, it concerns, at least in part, vehicles that have no wheels at all: surfboards. Now, I may be a proud California boy, and I may have spent much of my youth on a Boogie Board, but I'm no surfer. I do live close to the ocean, though, and my daily bike commute--not to mention most of my recreational rides--takes me within earshot of the crashing waves and close enough to taste the saltwater in the air. Plus my grandparents used to live in a condo in Oahu's remote Makaha valley, which just happens to empty onto one of the world's most historic surf sites. Put it all together, and I have a strange fascination for the worlds of surfing, and I thus rank Stacy Peralta's surf-themed documentaries (Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants) as two of my favorite films. More than surfing, this post is about local social history and how it is so often hidden in the landscapes we observe today. Given that it regards the modern United States, it's perhaps inevitable that the following introduction to a specific bit of local geography also centers around the concept of race. == It goes without saying that racial segregation is a major theme throughout all of the United States, urban as well as rural, and Southern California is certainly no exception. For example, the photo below from the collections at the LA Public Library reminds us that our beaches--among other places and institutions--were once segregated; in this case (ca. 1925), the group is standing next to the sign that marked the edge of "the Inkwell", the Santa Monica beach where Blacks were allowed, in contrast to Whites-Only Venice Beach to the south. Rather than near the beach, the centers of "black" Los Angeles have been east of the 405; Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Watts, Compton, Central Avenue, West Adams, Inglewood, are just some of the place names most associated with SoCal black communities of both the past and present. This generalized mental geography that places blacks in an extended "South-Central" zone is largely confirmed by recent Census counts. For example, look at the following map, based on the 1990 data, produced by the geographers at CSUN: It thus might come as some surprise that Manhattan Beach (just 0.6% black in 2000) actually has a significant place in the region's Afro-American historical geography. Manhattan Beach's "Parque Culiacan" suggests a link to Mexico (indeed, to Manhattan Beach's first official "sister city" in the 1970s), but the history of this land is more centrally linked to blacks and coastal racial segregation in the early twentieth century. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, this story is not told on the City's official website. (Earlier this year, however, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted to rename the park Bruce's Beach, in recognition of the history below.) For those interested in the social history of SoCal beaches, particularly in the South Bay, there is no better single source than a fascinating article by CSUN geographer Ronald Davidson, which was published in the 2004 Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. Here's the quick outline of the story of Parque Culiacan:

• 1902 - Manhattan Beach emerges as one of many oceanside resort developments on Santa Monica Bay
• 1911 - Standard Oil builds its refinery at El Segundo (the second refinery in California, hence the name), and MB booms as a residential suburb for oil workers
• 1912 - MB codeveloper George Peck progressively sets aside two beachfront blocks for nonwhite (i.e., black) property owners, who were otherwise excluded from owning beachfront property anywhere in Southern California. Willie Bruce and her husband Charles are the first to buy property and they build a small resort for blacks, complete with cafe, dance hall, and fishing pier. This becomes known as Bruces Beach.
• 1924 - After years of racist challenge to the Bruces' existence, including from a local chapter of the KKK, the city of MB uses eminent domain to acquire the property, move all the non-white residents out, in order to presumably build a park. The city's real motivation, though, to "ethnically cleanse" the area became apparent when the park wasn't actually built until the 1950s.

We might reflect on how subsequent public policy, especially with regard to schools and public transportation, have helped preserve Manhattan Beach as an overwhelmingly white place. Why, for example, didn't they build the Green Line closer to the beach, say along the old rail corridor that runs between Valley and Ardmore, which would have conveniently dropped off riders within walking distance of the beach, instead of keeping the Green Line much further inland near the 405? Why is it nearly impossible to ride the bus to the South Bay beaches especially now that MTA has canceled its old route 126 that served Hawthorne, Lawndale, and (via transfer) Inglewood, South L.A. and Watts? (It remains to be seen if the new Beach Cities Transit system will pick up the slack, but so far it doesn't seem to be terribly concerned with serving people from the other side of the 405.) Why did these same mostly-white beach cities change the name of the old Compton Blvd. to Marine Avenue in the late 1980s? The days of explicit, formal racial segregation may be over, but it still exists in only slightly more subtle forms. To bring the story full circle, the same year (1924) that Bruces Beach was being eliminated in Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica established its own blacks-allowed beach, popularly known as "the Inkwell". Rather than prime space near or north of the pier, the Inkwell was located on the stretch south of the pier between Pico and Ocean Park. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Inkwell is today remembered as a birthplace of black surfing, home to pioneers such as Santa Monica College alum Nick Gabaldon (another website and another). Finally, I probably don't need to tell you that beaches were hardly the only public space that were generally deemed off limits to blacks during the early 20th century. For example, public swimming pools were also segregated into the 1950s, with some pools only allowing blacks and other non-whites on so-called "international days", which invariably were held the day before the pool was cleaned. Ours is a sad, sad, embarrassing history, indeed.

• For more on LA's rich black history, click here.
• Those interested in the challenge of providing public access to our beaches will want to check out this publication from the Surfrider Foundation.