Everett Jenkins Birthday Blog

One of my Amherst College classmates, who happens to actually live in Manhattan Beach, sent along this clarification: "Just for clarity, the park is not located on the Bruce family (beachfront) lots, the county lifeguard station is. The park and a parking lot is "up the hill" from the Bruce lots and is on land acquired through eminent domain from other owners. The total value of all the lots acquired through eminent domain is probably closer to 75 million." I knew about the limitation of the restitution and reparations afforded to the Bruce Family but I appreciated the clarification, especially since it shows that even with the reparations paid to the Bruce Family, there was still an economic benefit obtained by the City of Manhattan Beach from the illegal seizure of land from other owners whose descendant family members are apparently unknown and/or unorganized.  I am nearing 70 so at this stage in life I have to take some pleasure in whatever small victories i can...

I received today's Los Angeles Times and read the following article:  Subject: Descendants decide to sell Bruce's Beach back to county http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=4a75cc22-639f-47ed-8e1c-24edb058674d It has been a strange year. I first visited Bruce Beach on January 5, 2022.  Now, on January 4, 2023, I read that the Bruce Family has decided to sell their land back to the County for $20 million.  This seems to be the right thing to me.  As set forth in my emails from early last year, it would be a shame to develop the Bruce Beach parcels.  The parcels are part of a beautiful park now and enable the City of Manhattan Beach to have an actual terraced City Park with spectacular ocean views.  Also, from my perspective, the $20 million purchase price seems about right. Once the transaction is finalized, I believe that justice will have been done. However, now that reparations for the theft of Bruce's Beach have been formulated a...

Happy New Year, Everyone! Over the weekend, I watched  The Woman King .  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_King The Woman King  is a rousing movie with a stand out performance by Viola Davis as the woman warrior who would become The Woman King.  While I marveled at the performances, especially the performance of Viola Davis, I found myself troubled by what I perceived to be the "revision" of history set forth in the movie.  The major thrust of  The Woman King  is that the women warriors of Dahomey were fighting to stop the enslavement of their fellow Africans.  However, I knew while watching the movie that such was not true.   As the wikipedia article notes: 888888 The Woman King  is set in the kingdom of  Dahomey  in the year 1823. [6]  The kingdom existed from around 1600 through 1904, and the  Agojie  existed for most of that time. [60] The film has been described as historically inaccurate by the...

In a previous post (see below), I made reference to meeting the legendary Larry Brilliant at the Techonomy 22 Conference.  The title of Larry Brilliant's segment was   "Global Health & Global Warming - What's the Connection?"  During his discussion, Larry Brilliant mentioned that Bhola Island, the site of mankind's greatest medical achievement -- the eradication of smallpox -- is in danger of being submerged by the rising oceans caused by global warming.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhola_Island It is perhaps more than ironic that Larry Briliiant was first drawn to Bhola Island because of the most deadly cyclone in history, the Bhola cyclone of 1970, and because he was drawn to this great environmental catastrophe he was also drawn into staying and ultimately to contributing to the effort to eradicate smallpox from the planet.  Perhaps, today Bhola Island along with so many other islands and coastal  areas are calling again, drawing us all ...

  Jenkins Family Update 202 2 Happy Holidays!   2022 was a very eventful year -- a year of many memorable reunions.  Here are some of the highlights of the year: Everett (aka Skip)   On January 5, I attended the memorial service for my cousin Marie Blair in Inglewood, California.  Marie was 102.  After the service, I had lunch with my sister, Evelyn, at the Cheesecake Factory in Marina Del Rey. After lunch, I ventured over to Manhattan Beach to visit, for the first time ever, the now famous Bruce's Beach 88888888888 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce%27s_Beach Bruce's Beach is an  African-American  beach resort at  Manhattan Beach  in  Los Angeles County, California . The property, which was located at 26th Street and Highland Avenue, was owned and operated by Charles and Willa Bruce for the benefit of the black community when  racial segregation  prevented them from enjoying opportuniti...