- Kimberley Guillemet
In 1912, African-American entrepreneur Willa Bruce and her husband Charles moved from New Mexico to California and bought beachfront property in the strand area of Manhattan Beach for $1,225. Mrs. Bruce wanted to create an area where African Americans could enjoy the ocean. The couple established a resort and named it Bruce’s Beach in honor of Mrs. Bruce.
Under Mrs. Bruce’s leadership, the development included a bathhouse and dining house for African Americans, whose access to public beaches was highly restricted at the time. Before the establishment of Bruce’s Beach, African Americans were not permitted to access the beaches in that region because of racially discriminatory laws and real estate practices. Mrs. Bruce proclaimed to the Los Angeles Times in 1912: “Whenever we have tried to buy land for a beach resort we have been refused. But I own this land and I’m going to keep it.”
By 1920 African Americans who regularly frequented Bruce’s Beach and had moved into the neighborhood surrounding the beach were subjected to harassment by white neighbors and assault by Ku Klux Klan members who set fires or planted liquor on site during Prohibition to get them arrested. In 1924, the Manhattan Beach City Council initiated eminent domain proceedings claiming that Bruce’s Beach property was needed for a public park, despite having recently built Live Oak Park nearby. The Bruces sued the city, but unfortunately the resort was torn down. By 1929, the Bruces settled the case for much less than they had originally sought in the lawsuit. A park was not established until the late 1950s or early 1960s.
In 2006, due to the efforts of Manhattan Beach Councilman Mitch Ward, the city’s first African-American councilman, the property was officially renamed Bruce's Beach. After years of advocacy by the Bruce family descendants and community leaders, in April 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve returning Bruce’s Beach to the family’s descendants. The property to be returned was estimated to be worth $75 million at the time. In June 2021, the California State Senate approved a bill to return the property to descendants of the Bruces. Legislation that prevented the county from transferring or selling the property was eliminated in September 2021 through the legislative approval process. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the legislation later the same month.
Despite not having the land returned to her during her lifetime, Willa Bruce’s vision and entrepreneurship benefitted countless African American residents of her time. She was a trailblazer in the field of commercial real estate and her legacy lives on.
To read more about the life and legacy of Willa Bruce and Bruce’s Beach, please visit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/bruce-family-manhattan-beach.html, and https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-tragic-history-of-las-black-family-beach-havens.
- Kimberley Guillemet
- Michael Simmons
This month's World Changer of the Month, Academy Award-winning actor Octavia Spencer, did not know what dyslexia was when she was a child. All she knew was that it was hard for her to read aloud because the words would get mixed up, and that she often felt paralyzed with fear whenever it was time to read in front of her class. However, she also knew that she was really good at solving puzzles and mazes, and that she loved reading about and deciphering mysteries.
Ms. Spencer’s teachers noticed that she was an exceptional auditory learner and could understand and perceive certain concepts much faster than her classmates. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with dyslexia, but she also tested into the gifted program. To some, these two designations might seem to be mutually exclusive. They are not. And Ms. Spencer’s designation as a gifted person with dyslexia confirms what many similarly-situated people have known for years: one can be twice exceptional. A person can be at once exceptionally intelligent and exceptionally different in the way that they learn, behave, perceive or generally experience the world.
Our education system, our society and indeed our world have taken care to set a very regimented list of attributes that we are to consider strengths and those that are relegated to the category of weaknesses. Much of the way our education system tests and evaluates students is geared toward students who learn in a very traditional way. Based upon what we know today about brain science and how students learn, we know that our testing and assessment mechanisms are in many ways very antiquated.
As a person who is a more traditional learner and thrives in conventional academic settings, I can attest to the privilege that I enjoyed throughout my academic career. The teaching mechanisms, curriculum and pedagogy are all generally geared toward traditional learners, especially in academically competitive settings. For students who have learning differences, this can create a challenge and lead to them being sidelined in these environments.
I have not personally had to navigate learning disabilities, but I have witnessed family members and dear friends with learning differences, which often went undiagnosed for years, struggle in school and fight to keep their self-esteem intact when teachers and peers made erroneous, ill-informed judgments about their intellect. All of the people in my life who have learning differences are among the most creative, empathetic, perceptive and innovative people that I know. They are the people at the top of my list to call upon when I need to generate creativity, innovation or unique ideas. I cannot imagine my world without these dear ones in it. Indeed, I think we can all agree that the human experience would be quite bland if we all saw and experienced it in a homogeneous way.
I am grateful that we are living in a time and space where our education system values diversity. While we are making strides when it comes to cultural and ethnic diversity, we still have a long way to go. We specifically have much more ground to cover when it comes to embracing diversity in learning orientation. Our education system is not set up for achievement of success by individuals with learning differences. We are making progress, but collectively, we still need to do better with inclusivity as it pertains to diverse learners. As a society, we must stop excluding and limiting learners based upon our narrow understanding of who they are and their abilities.
I am so glad that a young Octavia Spencer saw herself as the puzzle solver and auditory prodigy that she was, and rejected the lie of inferiority that our social constructs and societal norms would lead her to believe. Indeed, she has credited her dyslexia for her creativity and strong deductive reasoning skills. Had she internalized the prevalent messaging around intellect, she could have easily been sidelined and the world would have missed out on experiencing her genius.
We all need to be better about embracing uniqueness. The next time we encounter a friend, classmate or colleague who learns a bit differently, speaks a bit differently, dresses a bit differently or presents in a way that is otherwise unconventional, we should be mindful to include them and make every effort to support them. What we may perceive as a weakness, idiosyncrasy or oddity could actually be a strength depending on the context. It should never be an option to exclude, dismiss or sideline anyone for their innate traits or characteristics. We should remember this with respect to our interactions with others, as well as vis-à-vis our view of ourselves. You never know, you might be in the midst of a world-changing hidden figure.
- Kimberley Guillemet
Octavia Spencer was born in Montgomery, Alabama on May 25, 1970. She and her six siblings were raised by their mother, Dellsena Spencer, who worked as a maid. Her father died when she was thirteen.
Early on Spencer realized that she had a learning difference. She has recounted being fearful of reading aloud in class from a very young age. “I was paralyzed with fear because I kept inverting words and dropping words. I didn’t want to be made to feel that I was not as smart as the other kids—because I [knew that I was] a smart person.” Spencer would later be diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability.
Despite the challenges she faced with reading, Spencer’s drive and determination catapulted her forward. She credits her mother for keeping her grounded and positive as a child, which was especially helpful when school was challenging. She learned that she had strengths that many of her classmates did not have. She could solve puzzles quicker than her peers and was an incredibly strong auditory learner. Her teachers took notice of her strong deductive reasoning skills and auditory strengths, and ultimately, she was tested and placed in her school’s gifted program.
In high school, Spencer dreamed of working in television and film production. When she learned about a film being shot nearby, she applied for an on-set internship. But applying was not enough for Spencer. She called everyday to inquire about the job. And once she located the production team’s offices, she showed up everyday to reiterate her interest. Her persistence paid off and at 16 years old, she landed her first film job as an intern.
After graduating from Jefferson Davis High School in 1988, she went on to Auburn University, where she majored in English with a double minor in journalism and theater.
Today, Spencer has achieved international acclaim as an actor. Her acting career has spanned more than 20 years, but she is best known for her more recent roles. Some of her films include Hidden Figures, Insurgent, Zootopia and The Help. She’s received many awards, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
Spencer is also an author of children’s books and has created and written a book series for middle school students called The Ninja Detective series.
More recently, Spencer fulfilled her childhood dream of working in production when she added the role of producer to her list of achievements.
Even with all of her achievements, Spencer remains humble and true to herself.
“I was a dyslexic child and am a dyslexic adult,” she has said. “That doesn’t really mean that you’re not intelligent—it just means that your brain functions differently.”
Spencer hopes that young people who struggle with any kind of issue won’t give up on their dreams. She has said, “It doesn’t matter your situation in life; your path is what you choose it to be.”
To read more about this inspiring world changer, please visit:
https://www.understood.org/articles/en/celebrity-spotlight-dyslexia-cant-stop-octavia-spencers-success and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_Spencer#Early_life. To view footage about her successful career, visit: https://youtu.be/EYhZA454fcE.
