Nikki Ogunnaike had participated in Running to Protest’s rallies before, but never with her friend of more than 10 years, Lisa Lu. But on March 21, the two stood side by side at Union Square for the “Black & Asian Solidarity” protest—along with more than 1,000 other people. Ogunnaike, who is Nigerian American, had shared the details about Running to Protest with Lu, who is Vietnamese.

“I sent it to Lisa and I said, ‘Let’s get out there,’” Ogunnaike says. After a rally featuring speeches on fighting anti-Asian and anti-Black racism together, the thousand-plus protesters marched down Broadway. “Black lives matter. Asian lives matter,” they chanted in the streets of Lower Manhattan—many with outstretched arms, carrying signs that said “Stop Asian Hate.” Onlookers clapped on the sidewalks and drivers honked horns, with some lowering their windows to raise a fist in support. The crowd stretched on for blocks as more call-and-response chants sounded: “Show me what community looks like. This is what community looks like!”

Running to Protest’s “Black & Asian Solidarity” rally was organized weeks before the Atlanta-area spa shootings claimed the lives of eight people, including six Asian women, prompting a reckoning over the rise in the past year of anti-Asian violence and a long history of anti-Asian racism. But it quickly became one of several shows of Black and Asian solidarity following the Atlanta-area shootings, as people banded together over a common goal: dismantling white supremacy.