We remember some of the lost lives that sparked the justice movement

heating technician.

But like many his age, he had a rebellious streak, and on 9 August 2014, it’s alleged he stole a packet of cigarettes from a local shop near his home in Ferguson, Missouri.

Not long after, white police officer Darren Wilson spotted Michael and a friend walking in the road.

Suspecting Michael of the earlier theft, the officer stopped the pair.

While reports vary on what happened next, Wilson’s gun was fired and the pair ran.

After a short pursuit, Wilson shot Michael six times to the front of the head and arm. He fired a total of 12 bullets in the altercation. After the shooting, Michael’s mum Lesley McSpadden said that the family had been planning to celebrate her son leaving school. Instead, they were planning his funeral. The US Department of Justice later cleared Darren Wilson of any wrongdoing and concluded he acted in self-defence.

A witness claimed Brown had his hands in the air before being shot, and ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ became the slogan used by protesters following Michael’s death. escribed as articulate and intelligent, Sandra Bland, 28, had only just moved to rural Texas on 10 July 2015. On her way to work at a university, she was pulled over by white officer Brian Encinia for failing to signal while changing lanes.

Mobile-phone footage taken by Sandra, which only came to light last year, showed the officer asking her to get out of the car.

‘I will light you up,’ the officer is heard shouting as the pair argue and he points a taser gun at her.

‘You’re doing all of this for a failure to signal?’ Sandra can be heard saying as she gets out of the car.

Sandra’s 39-second footage then ends as the officer tells her to put her phone down.

But, in footage taken from a camera in Encinia’s police car, Sandra is seen with her wrists behind her back.

‘You’re about to break my wrist, stop,’ she can be heard screaming.

‘You’re a real man now, you just slammed me, knocked my head into the ground. I got epilepsy,’ she said.

Sandra was arrested for assault and was kept in jail for three days.

On 13 July, she was found dead in her cell.

Her death was ruled as suicide, but many disputed

Dthe cause of death, alleging that Sandra was a victim of racist violence. Encinia was indicted for perjury in 2015 after lying about the stop.

In 2016, Sandra’s family settled a wrongful-death lawsuit for $1.9 million (about £1.5 million). And in June 2017, the perjury charges against Encinia were dropped. Sandra’s death in custody highlighted the way that black women were mistreated by police. Protesters chanted ‘Say her name: Sandra Bland’, willing that neither Sandra, not her death, be forgotten.

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For more information about Black Lives Matter worldwide, visit blacklivesmatter.com