We’ve experienced a number of unforgettable Texas moments together this year, from attending virtual graduation ceremonies to voting in a pandemic. And as we cast our lens on these pivotal moments, we captured a state in flux. In the Permian Basin, where there was once an oil boom, we witnessed an oil bust. In March, the streets were empty as many of us hunkered down at home. In May and June, they were full of protesters. 

We also documented all kinds of Texans to know, from the new and notable (a 29-year-old judge and a 24-year-old classical music composer) to the everyday (Dallas students coping without prom and bus drivers delivering food to hungry students at home).

To memorialize this historic year, our design director, Emily Kimbro, and photo editor, Claire Hogan, assembled this photographic time capsule: images that paint a picture of what it was like to be Texan in 2020.

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May inspired protests around the world. In Texas, where Floyd’s funeral (shown here) took place in Houston on June 9, Black Lives Matter marches were held in cities as disparate as Vidor and Alpine, Amarillo and Brownsville. | After the Protests: Four Perspectives on the State’s Criminal Justice System
Photograph by Greg Noire
A scene from the early days of the pandemic: a street cleaner pushes a cart along an empty stretch of a downtown Houston street. | Haunting Scenes of a Pandemic-Induced Standstill
Photograph by Tamir Kalifa
Dallas-area high school students celebrated milestones virtually—including prom. Jummy Oluwemimo, shown here at age seventeen just before graduating from Advantage Academy, said she’d been envisioning her own prom since before moving to Texas from Nigeria. “I wanted to experience it. I’ve shed tears a couple of times over this.” | Dallas-Area High School Seniors Cope With a Semester—and Rites of Passage—Cut Short
Photograph by Mary Beth Koeth
Supporters gathered to hear speakers at Houston City Hall following a march to honor the memory of George Floyd, in downtown Houston, on June 2. | Photo Gallery: Black Lives Matter Protests in Texas
Photograph by Todd Spoth
“I love reading about politics, I love watching it,” said Peter Guzman, shown here outside his home in San Antonio on September 25. “But I haven’t been convinced to actually go out there and vote.” Leading up to November, there was much discussion about Texas’s Latino voters. And on Election Day, Democrats lost ground with Latinos in South Texas. | Don’t Call Texas’s Latino Voters the “Sleeping Giant”
Photograph by Abigail Enright
Austin stay-at-home orders forced the closure of movie theaters, which set the scene for our photo shoot with the Texas film director Richard Linklater (shown here at AFS Cinema), whom we profiled in our July issue. | Richard Linklater, the Everyday Auteur
Photograph by LeAnn Mueller
The Texas oil patch and the global energy markets were knocked down in the spring by the simultaneous arrival of a pandemic, which slashed global demand, and a market-share fight between petroleum giants Russia and Saudi Arabia, which flooded more oil into that cratering market. Here, an aerial view of decommissioned oil equipment in Midland. | The "Mother Fracker" Reckons With The Mother of All Oil Busts
Photograph by Nick Simonite
Laredo cardiologist Ricardo Cigarroa was on the early front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, making house calls and “dealing hard doses of truth,” establishing himself as a kind of Dr. Fauci of South Texas. “We can’t trust no one anymore,” Priscilla Villarreal, an influential Laredo tabloid news reporter who goes by the moniker Lagordiloca, wrote to her 166,000 Facebook followers on April 13. “It seems to me that the only one being straightforward with us is Dr. Cigarroa!” | The Dr. Fauci of South Texas
Photograph by Josh Huskin
Texas officials knew that if turnout rose during 2020’s closely contested presidential election, the pandemic would pose tremendous challenges to our electoral infrastructure. Under the leadership of 29-year-old Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County Commissioners’ Court appropriated $29 million for the election, seven times more than in 2016. As a result, 68 percent of the county’s registered voters cast a ballot in the November election, the highest turnout there since 1992. | The Best Things in Texas, 2021: Lina Hidalgo and Chris Hollins
Photograph by Brandon Thibodeaux
In the big cities, protests added urgency to local crises of confidence in law enforcement. Symptoms of the wider problem differed from place to place. Protesters in Austin chanted the name of Mike Ramos, an unarmed man killed by a police officer on April 24; in Fort Worth, protesters remembered Atatiana Jefferson, who was shot and killed inside her home in October 2019 by an officer who was standing in her yard. In Houston, a botched no-knock raid that killed two innocent people in January 2019 has been capturing headlines ever since. Here, demonstrators kneeled near Austin Police Department headquarters on May 31. | After the Protests: Four Perspectives on the State’s Criminal Justice System
Photograph by Montinique Monroe
For his Eagle Scout project, Nathaniel Lambert, 18, built flower beds for a local elementary school. He couldn’t wait to gather with fellow scouts for his court of honor, the official ceremony where he would receive his Eagle Scout neckerchief and badge. But, because of COVID-19, the court of honor was canceled. “I didn’t get the formal stuff. It’s upsetting." Lambert would also miss out on prom and graduation at Imagine International Academy of North Texas, and an art exhibit scheduled at the McKinney Performing Arts Center, where he was going to showcase his fashion design. | Dallas-Area High School Seniors Cope With a Semester—and Rites of Passage—Cut Short
Photograph by Mary Beth Koeth
When news of the coronavirus emerged, Justen Noakes, the director of emergency preparedness for H-E-B, dusted off a pandemic response plan the supermarket chain had developed more than a decade earlier. As a result, and while politicians struggled to respond to the pandemic, Texas’s beloved grocery chain emerged as an unlikely model of foresight, planning, and competence. | No Store Did More: How H-E-B Became a Model of Emergency Preparedness
Photograph by Tamir Kalifa
The East End neighborhood in Freeport, a petrochemical town of about 12,000 that’s situated on the Gulf, was once a thriving community. At 91 years old, Lila M. Lloyd has lived through the neighborhood’s slow spiral into decline. Most of the families who used to live here have sold their properties to Port Freeport, whose expansion plans aim to make Freeport the home of Texas’s deepest port. The East End’s trajectory is not unusual for low-income communities of color in Texas: segregation, accompanied by polluting industries, followed by an aggressive industrial expansion that ultimately displaces the remaining residents. | How to Erase a Neighborhood
Photograph by Michael Starghill
Another scene from the early days of lockdown: Austin’s Congress Avenue Bridge, notorious for traffic snarls, was at times free of vehicles (as in this shot, taken on March 25). | Haunting Scenes of a Pandemic-Induced Standstill
Photograph by Tamir Kalifa
In San Antonio, school bus drivers became relief workers. As part of SAISD Eats, a district-wide effort to get free food into the hands of hungry children attending school remotely because of the pandemic, drivers like Bobby Richardson (left, in red shirt) began delivering meals to neighborhood bus stops and individual residences. | San Antonio School Bus Drivers Have Become Relief Workers
Photograph by Ilana Panich-Linsman
Religious holidays, including Ramadan, were not the same this year. For many Muslims, the holy month is defined by its communal aspects: every night after fast is broken, mosques are usually packed with worshippers attending an extra twenty-unit prayer, called taraweeh, held in congregation. This year, though mosques were exempt from Governor Greg Abbott’s ”stay at home” order, many opted to stay closed for the Muslim holy month. | Texas Muslims Prepare for a Remote Ramadan
Photograph by Josh Huskin
A scene from the protests in downtown Fort Worth on June 2: a man takes a knee while watching the march. Later that month, Fort Worth police dropped charges against about fifty protesters who were arrested for rioting. | Photo Gallery: Black Lives Matter Protests in Texas
Photograph by Andrés Duran
Quinn Mason, a 24-year-old composer from Dallas, may be classical music’s next superstar. And in November, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra premiered his "Reflection on a Memorial," dedicated to George Floyd and other victims of racial violence. “I’ve definitely been thinking about the events that have been happening lately,” he said of the Black Lives Matter protests across the country. “And I’m very glad that a new kind of movement is happening, that people are actually speaking up about the injustice that has been happening for years and years. I’ve personally experienced some of that myself, of course.” | Why Quinn Mason, a 24-Year-Old Composer From Dallas, May Be Classical Music’s Next Superstar
Photograph by Temi Thomas