Amazon and Viola Davis to tell the story of Bruce's Beach, a Black-owned beach resort stolen by the city of Manhattan Beach

Deadline

Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions and Brad Pitt's Plan B are partnering on a scripted series on Bruce's Beach, which received renewed attention last year after it was the subject of a Los Angeles Times article. Bruce’s Beach was a Black-owned beach resort near Los Angeles in the early 1900s "where Black people could dip their toes in the sand and bask in their own slice of the California dream" reports The Times. "But their white neighbors, in this very white town, ran them all away." The beach resort, owned by Black couple Willa and Charles Bruce, offered the Black community services that were denied in other beach areas because of racial segregation. "The series plans to explore the dynamic life of the Bruce’s Beach community in the spirit of Black livelihood and leisure, as envisioned by the Bruce family in its creation," according to Deadline. Bruce's Beach is making headlines this week as a state bill proposes returning the land to descendants of the Bruce family. The untitled series will be based on Alison Rose Jefferson’s 2020 book Living The California Dream: African American Leisure Sites During the Jim Crow Era.