Grandma Eva knelt beside the tub and placed a white sachet the size of a dollar coin in Aja’s palm. The cloth bag was tied together with old rope and smelled of cumin and grits.

The three of us shared a mattress on the floor of a cramped room in Westlake. Every few nights my brother would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, telling my mom the eyeless men were coming to get him. Those nightmares never let up.

Photojournalist Ozier Muhammad has captured some of the most important political pinch points of our times, from South Africa’s first free elections in 1994, to Obama’s 2008 campaign.