This is part of a series that highlights the work of those who stepped up to help others during the difficult days of 2020. To read other articles in the series, go to www.theday.com/brightlights2020.

Alexis Thornton never pictured herself being an activist, let alone leading crowds of protesters through the streets of her hometown. But living through the year 2020 changed everything.

In May, the now 27-year-old found herself unemployed for the fourth month in a row as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the region, after working for five years as a caregiver.

She wasn't sure what to do with her newfound free time — but then something happened that lit a fire in her. An unarmed black man named George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement in cities across the map, including New London.

On a hot day in May, Thornton, who is Black, headed to her city's downtown to take part in her first protest. She didn't have a plan, she didn't even have a poster. But by the end of the day, she was leading her fellow demonstrators into the streets to stop traffic — a move that led the crowd on a march throughout the city.

For the first few hours of the rally, Thornton sat under the hot sun and listened to speakers share their stories and spread the message of the movement. But as she looked around, she realized that everyone in the crowd was already on their side — they needed to reach those who hadn't shown up.

"We're talking about Black Lives Matter, but we were all there because we already agreed with that, so I just didn't understand why we were just talking to each other," she said. "We all know that Black lives matter but let's tell the people who didn't come, the people passing by who may not feel that way."

So, she stepped into traffic.

Within minutes, fellow protesters joined Thornton in front of the train station on Water Street as they halted drivers passing through downtown, in hopes of taking a stand and making a statement.

"People are going to stop, I was just claiming that. They're going to stop, they're going to listen to us, they're gonna hear our message," she said.

She knew, though, that it was possible some cars wouldn't stop. She also knew she might get arrested. But to her, it was worth the risk.

As the crowd swelled on Water Street, Thornton continued to lead her fellow protesters as they marched through the city. They headed first to the police station, then up Broad Street, closing streets to traffic as hundreds and hundreds of voices echoed up Colman Street and back down Bank Street to the plaza.

With a new passion for protest burning within her, Thornton set out to stand up for the BLM movement over and over again, participating in protests in other places, including Groton, as she continued taking to the streets in New London.

One stop that stood out, as she looked back on the momentous summer, was Mystic.

"I usually feel like a sore thumb when I go to Mystic," Thornton said.

"I always feel like in Mystic I need to be in and out, even though it's right there it's a big difference, there aren't many of us there," she said. But in June, after she heard about allegations that a toy store owner had made racist remarks to a Black employee and BLM demonstrators, she knew she needed to go support her fellow protesters.

"As soon as we pulled up, we knew we were going to be some of the only Black people there," she said. She and her friend arrived with tape over their mouths that said "I can't breathe" — an homage to Floyd and many other Black men and women killed by police — and planned to stand in solidarity with the crowd that had gathered on East Main Street.

But before long, Thornton was once again behind the mic.

She stepped off the overflowing sidewalks and into the street with her fellow protesters, determined to again disrupt daily life for those driving by, in an effort to share their message, their pain.

At this protest, one driver tried to keep moving, driving his truck dangerously close to Thornton. Police officers closed in and a woman Thornton didn't know, who was white, stepped between the activist and the truck.

Moments later, Thornton stood in the center of a circle where other protesters rallied around her. She bowed her head, tears streaming down her face, with a sign raised in the air that read "stop killing us."

Protesting, for Thornton, was a way to combat decades of racist microagressions she said she's experienced throughout her life in New London, as a result of her Black skin.

Thornton, over the summer, said she feels like she's been living under a microscope her whole life. Carefully crafting her every move to make sure she doesn't upset a white person.

"How we move comes from learned lessons that you learn along the way from a young age, racism is taught early on. It happens with everyday things you wouldn't even think of, that wouldn't even cross your mind," she said.

"For instance getting pulled over, needing to make sure you have everything out but also making sure you aren't moving too much when you reach over to your passenger side to get those things. Having to be extra respectful to the police officer and moving slowly. It's being in a job interview, filling out a job application, being out with your friends too late — It's almost like in any life issue we have to go above and beyond just to kind of make up for what is already taken away from us because we're Black."

She even catches herself having racist thoughts about her own actions, she said, because it's so embedded in her thinking.

"You're always just kind of walking on eggshells to make sure nobody is going to be bothered with what you're doing, because even if it's not a good reason, if they do want to take it a step further and call the cops, you never know how that's going to go," she said.

As the nationwide protests lost momentum as the summer wore on, Thornton continued to take a stand, quite literally. In July, she stood at the Soldiers and Sailors monument in downtown New London for at least one hour every single day — no matter the weather, no matter the hateful messages shouted from passing vehicles.

Most days, she stood there alone. Other days, her "nana" — 75-year-old Ollita Coleman — would stand by her side, whispering "hush child" when Thornton found herself enraged by shouts of "all lives matter" from passersby.

Every day, she proudly held a sign made by a woman at the Groton church where her grandfather is a pastor.

The sign, decorated with African prints, had a simple, yet powerful message: "Black Lives Matter."

t.hartz@theday.com