An intense day, as more than 200,000 people attended The Commitment March in Washington on August 28, to demand accountability for the murder of unarmed black Americans.

While the marches themselves are mass events driven by a common cause, every person brings his or her own history and emotional state of being out onto the streets.

A burst of sheer righteous joy while marching up Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Under the banner of Black Lives Matter, there are a number of diverse groups and sometimes varying goals. This organization, RefuseFascism, was calling for the removal of “the fascist regime” of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

A personal, prayer-like moment on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC.

Seeming to tower over her surroundings, activist and organizer Kimberly Bernard commands a march through the West Village in New York.

This is Qween Jean, activist, designer and powerful voice in the fight for Black Trans liberation. The Black LGBTQ community has played a key role in so many of the events I participated in, and Qween Jean was an almost constant – and commanding – presence.

To those of us who returned to the streets night after night to demand justice and change, organizers and march leaders like Kiara Williams seemed like superheroes – powerful, righteous, larger than life.

“Hands up don’t shoot!” was one of the chants we would shout at almost every march throughout the summer, fall and winter – usually as we passed stone-faced NYPD officers, who would line the streets in an attempt to intimidate protesters.

At every rally, dozens of people carry signs. But it’s the man himself underneath this particular one, holding his message up high amidst a sea of demonstrators and straining to have his message heard, that provides the exclamation point.

Beneath every handmade sign, there’s the person who holds it. For me, that was always where the deeper story of this movement could be found – in the faces of those who marched, sacrificed and demanded justice.

A young girl stares straight into the camera’s lens, appearing strong and wise beyond her years.

A father’s knowing eyes give us plenty to read into, while on his shoulders, his son takes in the larger historic moment.

On this afternoon, on the birthday of Breonna Taylor, a crowd of protesters numbering maybe 300 marched down the West Side Highway, a major thoroughfare, stopping traffic and chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets?”

Black Lives Matter Square in Washington on August 28, on a day when it felt like anything was possible.

Protest marches are often depicted as angry and conflict-filled, but those were rare. This march, up the West Side of Manhattan, had a touched-by-god feeling of joy.

It’s easy to forget that very movement is made up of thousands of individuals and individual moments. This image was captured on the birthday of Breonna Taylor.

Addressing a large gathering in midtown Manhattan, activists Kiera Williams and Kimberly Bernard react to yet another acquittal in the murder of an unarmed black person.

Pain, sorrow and perhaps a glimmer of hope, on the face of this woman listening to speakers at The Commitment March in DC.

A moment of quiet reflection, remembering every black Americans killed by police this past year.

Even the most intense Black Lives Matter marches will often stop and break into music and joyful celebration of Blackness.

A teaching moment at a rally early last summer.

At a rally in front of the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James after the acquittal of officers in the killing of Breonna Taylor.

On this day, an outraged organizer must shout through her own tears to get her message across at a rally in Union Square.