SANTA MONICA: THE EBONY BEACH CLUB
“Black entrepreneurs built beach havens in California. Racism shut them down,” writes Falene Nurse for High Country News. “In 1958, Silas White, a Black entrepreneur, set out to transform his dream—opening a Black beach club on the Santa Monica shores—into reality. He would call it the Ebony Beach Club, and he pictured it becoming one of the finest establishments in America for ‘the accommodation and comfort of my people,’ he wrote in a letter to prospective members.”
Anticipation of the Ebony Beach Club drew the attention of Black artists around Los Angeles and the country at large, including Nat King Cole, who expressed interest in membership. The Ebony Beach Club would have been an escape from official segregation and discrimination in Santa Monica. But within a year of purchasing the property the city of Santa Monica denied Silas White’s dream, seizing the property through eminent domain and demolishing it for a state- and federally-funded “urban renewal” project.
The intent of “urban renewal” was to rehabilitate areas considered “blighted” by demolishing them and replacing them with projects at least nominally for public use. More often than not, “blighted” was simply shorthand for “non-white”—see my first pinned post for more on the racist history of urban renewal. In this case there was hardly even a pretense of public use—a few years after seizing the property from Silas White, the city simply sold the land back to a private developer, who built a luxury hotel.
I’m proud to be working with Where is My Land to seek restitution for the White family. Where Is My Land is supporting Constance White, daughter of Silas White, and her cousin, Milana Davis, with their family’s battle to obtain full reparative justice for the city of Santa Monica’s theft of the Ebony Beach Club (the former Elks Club building on Ocean Ave). Founded by Kavon Ward, Where is My Land is the organization behind the successful return of Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce Family in Manhattan Beach, a case very similar to this one.
Visit their website to sign the petition and learn more!
