Dear editor:
Nearly 60 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Following are three examples of the application of justice as a means of healing. Collectively, we need to insist on accountability as essential to rectifying egregious past wrongdoings.
In 1912, a Black couple, Charles and Willa Bruce, purchased a parcel of ocean-front land on Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles County. The two shoreline lots became known as Bruce’s Beach and served as one of the first beaches Black residents could use due to segregation.
However, for years, local whites persisted in harassing guests and vandalizing the resort property. In 1924, using fabricated plans to build a public park, the town board of trustees seized the land through eminent domain. The Bruce family requested compensation of $70,000 for the two lots and $50,000 in damages. The city paid them $14,500. The city did nothing with the land, which was eventually transferred to the state of California in 1948.
On June 28 of this year, the local board of supervisors voted unanimously to return ownership of the land to the Bruce family. State Senator Steven Bradford, who wrote the bill transferring the land to two great-grandsons, said it would help provide the Bruce family with the generational wealth they were denied for decades, “simply because they were Black in America.” The Bruce family agreed to lease the land back to the county for the operation of a lifeguard facility on the site. Today, the land has an estimated value of $75 million dollars.
In May of 1921, this country witnessed one of the most horrific incidents of racial terrorism recorded in America. The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Okla., had come to be known as Black Wall Street. Black-owned businesses thrived and the community was one of the most prosperous neighborhoods in America.
In response to an alleged assault of a white woman by a young Black man, the Tulsa Tribune printed an editorial calling for a lynching. What followed was a white mob perpetrating 18 hours of destruction across the Greenwood District, which has subsequently been termed the Tulsa Race Massacre. Some 300 people were killed and an estimated 10,000 were left homeless over the 35-square-blocks area. More than 60 businesses and 1,200 homes were looted and burned, as well as a school, library, hospital and 12 churches. Local government abdicated responsibility to provide effective remedies for violations of human rights while prominent business leaders and government officials blocked efforts by Blacks to reinvest and rebuild.
On May 21, 2021, the centennial of the race massacre, a reparations bill was introduced in Congress. The Claims Accountability Act provides survivors and descendants access to courts to seek restitution and dismisses previous statute of limitation parameters. The bill serves as an admission indicating the government is not absolved of century-old harm, nor the harm created by inaction over the years.
Last month, Pope Francis began a weeklong “pilgrimage of penance” across Canada to apologize to indigenous people for “deplorable” abuses previously committed by some Catholic missionaries at residential schools. From 1883-1998, some 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to attend Christian schools and assimilate into Christian society.
Indigenous groups are seeking access to church archives to learn the fate of children who never returned home. The Church has begun payment in cash and in-kind contributions as reparations. The Pope’s apology validates those experiences and creates an opportunity for the Church to begin to repair relationships with indigenous people.
In March of 2013, political activist and scholar Angela Davis posted on Twitter, “I am no longer accepting things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” The time has come for each of us to identify opportunities to begin to repair and make amends for injustices perpetrated on our fellow man. We owe it to future generations to eliminate structural and systemic racism that still exists today.
Peter Wibell, Rutledge