‘Denying our humanity’: how Santa Monica decimated a thriving Black community

African Americans helped build the iconic beach town, historian Alison Rose Jefferson details as California weighs reparations

At Shutters on the Beach, a luxury hotel in Santa Monica, guests staying in $1,500-a-night rooms can get pristine views of white-sand shores and the Pacific Ocean, hot stone massages, afternoons filled with live jazz and fresh seafood dinners.

Few visitors, however, will know that 100 years ago, the site was at the center of a painful turning point for Santa Monica's Black community.