Section 14 tells the story of a square mile of tribal land in the heart of Palm Springs — land now covered by the hotels, shops, and restaurants that make the city one of the country's top vacation destinations. From 1954 to 1966, under a mayor so popular his statue stood outside city hall for decades, city officials burned and bulldozed the homes of the mostly Black and Latino families who lived there, in what the California Attorney General's Office has called a "city-engineered holocaust."
Today, more than 14 million tourists visit Palm Springs each year, most unaware of how the city was built. Over the past decade, descendants of Section 14 residents have pushed for recognition and accountability, culminating in a first-of-its-kind restitution framework that will direct millions of dollars to survivors' families and fund a new community and cultural center. This documentary follows that arc — from forced removal to reckoning — and asks what accountability looks like in a wealthy, image-conscious city decades later, and whether Palm Springs' reckoning offers a model for other communities confronting similar histories.