Originally named “Concerned Citizens of Manhattan Beach,” the group took its first name from “Concerned Citizens of Holly Park,” an organizing project in Gardena that Mich’s parents co-founded. After the uprisings in Black communities across the country during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, real estate developers stoked fear and mistrust among residents of mixed race communities nationwide. This led to white flight from communities like Mich’s in Gardena. Her family participated in a coalition of neighbors who stood against these divisive, profit-seeking tactics, and we sought to honor this legacy by naming our group Concerned Citizens of Manhattan Beach.
In 2020, an anonymous group of self-proclaimed residents began identifying themselves as “Concerned Residents of Manhattan Beach” in a series of email newsletters. The group’s overt intention was to oppose our city’s attempt to apologize for its role in a 1920’s-era incident that we now colloquially refer to as “Bruce’s Beach.” Using eminent domain, the predecessor to our present-day Manhattan Beach City Council seized highly lucrative beachfront property from Black residents and business owners, with the most notable tract of land being stripped from the family of Willa and Charles Bruce. This history – previously known by very few Manhattan Beach residents – was receiving a great deal of exposure as the Black freedom struggle re-took center stage in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
The Concerned Residents’ group took out a full-page ad in a local paper arguing against an apology for what happened at Bruce’s Beach 100 years ago, invoking fear tactics to suggest that an apology would result in costly litigation to the City and its residents. This group continues to organize in our city and promote its reactionary narrative. Like the blockbusting tactics of Gardena realtors before them, they also use fear tactics to stoke divisions in our community.
It is for this reason that we changed our name from Concerned Citizens of Manhattan Beach (CCMB) to Community Conversations of Manhattan Beach, retaining the CCMB letters, while removing confusion about our intent.