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Last updated: February 8, 2009 

About Beach Impeach

Photo - Yes 1-2008THE INSPIRATION for the “Beach Impeach Project” came to San Francisco cabdriver Brad Newsham on a Saturday afternoon in late October 2006, while he was sitting around the kitchen table with his wife and then 9-year-old daughter. For a year and a half prior, Newsham had been involved in the impeachment movement, where he had noticed an over-abundance of bluster and chatter and angry words but a near-total lack of compelling visuals. And now, suddenly, he had his idea…

[Ocean Beach, San Francisco: January, 2009 (photo left) -- Three hundred giddy citizens celebrate the final sunset of the Bush era and the coming dawn of the Obama administration.]

Exactly eleven Saturdays later – during the 5 AM darkness of January 6, 2007 – Newsham (then 55) steered his tool-packed station wagon away from his home in Oakland, across the Bay Bridge, and toward Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He had spent the past 11 weeks arranging special-event insurance, a Park service permit, a helicopter and photographer, and also teaching himself how to outline crisp, 100-foot-tall letters in sand. Through the Internet, Newsham had spread word of his intentions, and that morning he was hoping for a crowd of 1,000 people to join him, and to lay their bodies down on the beach to spell out the message “IMPEACH!” Just recently San Francisco’s elected congressperson, Nancy Pelosi, had assumed the speakership of the US House of Representatives. Now, two days into her term, the Beach Impeach Project was unfolding right in Pelosi’s “backyard,” and many in the progressive movement were hopeful that the Bush administration would finally be held accountable for a long list of crimes.
 
Anyone who was at Ocean Beach that day knows that Beach Impeach #1 came off magically (the several events that followed were almost identically perfect). The weather was an ideal 65 degrees with flawless blue skies. One thousand people did in fact show up, and did in fact arrange themselves to spell out “IMPEACH!” The hired helicopter arrived right on schedule, as did a Channel 7 News chopper. The imagery captured that morning – with the huge IMPEACH! in the foreground and the Golden Gate Bridge draped elegantly in the background – was stunning, world-class (“iconic” was the word used by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.) Footage of the event went nationwide on the ABC network, worldwide on CNN, and was featured in newspapers, magazines, and websites all over the planet. For a few heady days the impeachment movement was galvanized by the idea that justice was indeed on its way…

Everyone knows that things didn’t turn out quite as hoped (not yet, anyway!) -- Bush and Cheney did indeed survive their terms – but it wasn’t because the Beach Impeach throngs lost interest. During 2007, three more events were held – two drew 1,000 people, one drew 1,500. Beach Impeach #5 took place in April, 2008, and on January 19, 2009 (at sunset on Martin Luther King Day, and just 19 hours before Barack Obama would be sworn in as president of the United States), a “final celebration” (pictured above) was held.

Anyone who attended any Beach Impeach events knows that the spirit created (and it was the same spirit each time) was equally as magical as the spectacular imagery – if not moreso. Veteran activists said they had never been to anything so peaceful, and so much fun. There were kids, dogs, elderly, young, middle-aged, gay, straight, black, brown, white, and countless Codepink – and no speeches or chants or shouting to suffer through. Laughter and giddiness and delight were the order of each event, all of which were short and sweet – and free! Twice, a rocking, nine-piece, Zimbabwean marimba band added spice to the fun. And within a few weeks, participants in each event received aerial-imagery postcards in the mail. 

Well, there it is – a brief history of the Beach Impeach Project as recalled by its creator, me, Brad Newsham. (Sorry about using the third person above – it seemed easier for me to write it that way.) 
Thank you for reading. And if you came to one of the events (and I know that some of you came to ALL of them), thank you Forever. 
 
Brad Newsham 
Email: newsham@mac.com 
Cell: 415-305-8294
Postal: 4096 Piedmont Av, #601, Oakland, CA  94611