The black woman in the photograph stands in calm protest, her long dress fluttering in the breeze as two policemen clad in the heavy black padding and helmets of riot gear rush to remove her from a roadway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Officers took about 180 people into custody over the weekend in the state capital, mostly on misdemeanor charges accusing them of blocking traffic on a major thoroughfare during protests over recent police shootings of black men.

But the standoff with one woman, identified by friends as Ieshia Evans, has encapsulated for some the spirit of demonstrators across the country protesting in the past week what they decry as unjust treatment of minorities by police.