A Cage in Washington, a Name in the Sand

On the eve of Trump's eightieth birthday, which he is marking with cage fights on the lawn of the White House, hundreds gathered at Ocean Beach and lay down in the sand, forming the name Epstein with their bodies, a demand for the release of the redacted files that mention the president!

On the eve of the carefully choreographed celebrations for his eightieth birthday, while the cage and fireworks were being prepared in Washington, several hundred people lay down in the sand at Ocean Beach in San Francisco and formed a single word with their bodies. Near Stairwell 17, they wrote EPSTEIN into the sand, enclosed within the outline of a file folder bearing the name Trump. Outside the folder, others held an American flag beside the words FILES TO TRIALS, from files to trials. Organized through the platform SF Funcheap, the gathering demanded the release of the redacted documents concerning convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that mention the president and pointed to the disclosure that remains incomplete to this day.

Although a great deal of material has been published in the Justice Department's Epstein library, authorities continue to withhold many documents containing allegations involving Trump, saying this is necessary to protect the privacy of accusers and preserve sensitive information. In this way, protection of victims becomes protection of the powerful, whose name remains in the dark, and the dispute over redactions and the protection of those affected continues. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and downplayed his relationship with Epstein, who according to authorities died by suicide in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking.

The gathering at Ocean Beach was intended as a response to the celebration Trump is holding Sunday in Washington on Flag Day. To mark his eight decades, he plans mixed martial arts fights inside a massive octagonal cage on the South Lawn of the White House. And the celebration continues. On June 24, a rally is planned that is meant to end all rallies, featuring country singer Lee Greenwood and classical crossover singer Christopher Macchio in place of an originally planned concert series, along with a large fireworks display tied to the America 250 celebrations marking the nation's anniversary in July.

The protest in San Francisco was a prelude to the nationwide gatherings of the No Kings movement on Sunday, gatherings intentionally divided into smaller, community building events rather than the large marches of previous months. Yet the most dangerous form of resistance has for fourteen months now taken place quite literally underground. Networks of information and assistance operate beneath the surface, along with efforts of education and awareness, carried by human rights organizations, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, doctors, lawyers, and activists who above all support those unjustly detained by ICE and migrants, all those whom Trump's policies have thrown into hardship. They maintain supply chains for food and medicine and care for children, and they carry out legal resistance against the regime in places where there is no banner in the sand and no camera watching. It is the quiet work of those who help where helping itself has become dangerous.

In the Bay Area, nothing larger had been planned, but cafés and community centers invited people to viewing gatherings of the livestreamed Concert for the First Amendment in New York, featuring Patti Smith, Bette Midler, Rufus Wainwright, and other performers and speakers.

The image formed by people in the sand, conceived by travel writer Brad Newsham and architectural illustrator Travis Van Brasch, marked the return of this artistic form of resistance after a pause of several months. Earlier images of this kind had carried the word ABOLISH in February after ICE officers fatally shot two demonstrators in Minneapolis, IT WAS MURDER and ICE OUT in January, FAMILIA during the Families First protests last July, NO KING during No Kings Day last June, and IMPEACH + REMOVE in April 2025.

An image made of people is the opposite of a redaction. Where Washington blacks out a name on paper, people write it large into the sand with their own flesh, out in the open, where no authority can erase it. The king celebrates himself on Flag Day with a cage and fireworks, and four thousand kilometers to the west his people spell out the one word he would rather bury. The celebration is the loud word in place of the quiet act, the birthday is announced while the file remains guarded and the privacy of victims ultimately serves to protect the man. A name written in the sand and carried away by the tide remains in the conscience longer than the document locked away in the library. Trump wanted a birthday. What he received was a warning, spelled out in bodies.