What happened when Lyndon Johnson federalized the National Guard

Until this past weekend, it had been 60 years since a U.S. president federalized a state’s National Guard force without the cooperation of its governor. President Lyndon B. Johnson invoked that authority in 1965, calling on troops to protect civil rights advocates who were marching from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery.

That incident is now in the spotlight again, after President Trump’s controversial move to federalize the California National Guard — against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump says the military presence is needed to restore order, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids sparked public protests. Newsom says demonstrators who aren’t peaceful should be punished — but he also blames Trump, saying the president has inflamed the situation.

In recent decades, several states have asked presidents to send federal military or law enforcement personnel in times of intense public disorder.

In 1992, California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush for help coping with violence and protests after the jury’s verdict in the trial of the police beating of Rodney King, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Other instances include the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, and violence in Detroit in 1967.

Johnson acted in 1965 after a governor refused

In a March 20, 1965, executive order, Lyndon Johnson cited a recent federal court order approving plans for activists to march from Selma to Montgomery on Highway 80. It would be the third high-profile march from Selma, setting out two weeks after the “Bloody Sunday” march that was violently halted at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Noting “the likelihood of domestic violence and obstruction of the execution and enforcement” of federal laws, Johnson authorized the defense secretary to deploy active-duty troops as well as members of the Alabama National Guard.

Johnson said he took the rare step after being told by Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a segregationist, “that the state is unable and refuses to provide for the safety and welfare” of the activists.

Transcripts of conversations between Johnson and Wallace show that on March 18, the president had urged the governor to send in the National Guard on his own, to protect the marchers and prevent the situation from escalating further.

“Let the march start before people can get there from these other states, and you call up your Guard,” Johnson told Wallace, according to American Public Media. He pledged not to federalize any Guard units except as a last resort.

“If it takes ten thousand Guardsmen, we’ll have them. I’ll just do whatever is necessary,” Wallace said. But that night, the governor said on TV that he was demanding the president send federal troops to help. The next morning, Johnson called Wallace “a no-good son of a b****!” according to a phone call transcript.

The powers Johnson invoked had also been used by previous presidents, including John F. Kennedy’s mobilization of troops in both Mississippi and Alabama. But they had previously been unused for decades, from the end of Reconstruction to the 1950s, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Eisenhower also federalized the National Guard

In September 1957, a governor and a president used their military powers to mobilize troops with opposing goals. The crisis arose in Arkansas, three years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

As a new school year began in Little Rock, the Arkansas National Guard surrounded Central High School to block Black students from attending, under orders from Gov. Orval Faubus.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower met the governor, who said he would obey court orders for desegregation.

“However, once back in Little Rock, Governor Faubus withdrew the National Guard,” according to a summary from the National Archives. “A few days later, when the Black students entered the school, a full-scale riot erupted.”

Eisenhower then ordered units from the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to protect the students, who became known as the “Little Rock Nine,” and to ensure court desegregation orders were enforced. Eisenhower also federalized the Arkansas National Guard.

The 101st Airborne left by October, but National Guard troops remained throughout the school year, according to a National Park Service history.