President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests is the latest in the long history of elected US authorities sending troops in the hopes of blocking unrest associated with civil rights protests.
National Guard troops are usually deployed for various emergency and natural disasters with the permission of a reactive state governor, but Republican Trump has sent around 1,000 California State Guard troops to Los Angeles despite objections from California’s government Gavin Newsmu and Los Angeles’ Karen-Based.
The conflict began Friday when dozens of protesters gathered outside federal jails demanding the release of more than 40 people arrested by federal immigration authorities across Los Angeles as part of Trump’s deportation campaign.
Trump said the military would need to be federated on Saturday to “dealize lawlessness” in California. Newsom said Trump’s orders were “completely overreacting” and “deliberately inflammatory and only escalates tension.”
Some of the previous National Guard deployments have maintained peace amid violent crackdowns from local law enforcement and threats from vigilantes, but have sometimes escalated tensions among those protesting civil rights or racial equality.
In rare cases, the president invoked an 18th century wartime law known as the Rebellion Act. This is the main legal mechanism that a president can use to activate the military or national guard during an era of rebellion and mayhem. They also relied on similar federal laws that allowed the president to turn federal forces into federal government under certain circumstances. This is what Trump did on Saturday.
Check out some of the most notable developments.
George Floyd protests in Los Angeles in 2020
National Guard members marched along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 2, 2020 amid protests over the death of George Floyd, who died May 25th after being taken into custody by Minneapolis police. (Ringo HW Chiu/AP)
Almost five years ago, Newsom deployed around 8,000 National Guard troops and quelled protests against racial injustice inspired by the death of George Floyd of Minnesota. More than half of the military deployed in California were sent to Los Angeles County, and police arrested more than 3,000 people. City officials at the time, including then-Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, supported Newsom’s decision.
Rodney King protests in 1992
On April 30, 1992, a fire burns out at the corner of 67th Avenue and West Boulevard in south Los Angeles.
Some compared Trump’s decision on Saturday to George H.W. Bush’s use of the Rebellion Act to respond to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In just six days, the protest became one of the deadliest racial riots in American history, killing 63 people, of which nine were killed by police.
Silita Dunley, a teacher in Southern Los Angeles, said she vividly remembers a teenager watching black smoke from her porch during the 1992 uprising.
Dunley said at the time, law enforcement seemed more concerned about property damages affecting wealthy areas than fraud that caused anxiety.
She said some people in her neighborhood were more afraid of police than the state guards as local police “had a green light to keep people brutal” when the troops left.
Watts’ protest in 1965
In 1965, there was a fatal protest around Watts in Los Angeles, addressing anger at abusive police and lack of resources for the community. More than 30 people have died. Two-thirds were shot dead by police or National Guard forces. Many say their neighborhoods have never fully recovered from a fire that levelled hundreds of buildings.
The consolidation protests from the 1950s to the 1960s
On September 26, 1957, the members of the File Photography, No. 101th Sky Borne division held a position outside Central High School, Little Rock, ARK. (AP photo)
In 1956, the governor of Tennessee called the state’s military to help enforce the integration in Clinton, Tennessee.
President Dwight Eisenhower called the Arkansas National Guard and the US Army 101st Airborne Division in 1957, escorting nine black students who previously integrated white-only schools.
Years later, the Maryland State Guard stayed in a small town in Cambridge for two years after Maryland’s Democratic government, J. Millard Tars, called on the troops to mediate violent clashes between white mobs and black protesters demanding a deficit.
Selma, Alabama, 1965 Voting Rights Protest
The National Guard Forces played a pivotal role in March, which often hampered the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which demanded the right to vote by Alabama police officers in Selma, Alabama.
Two weeks later, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson dispatched the National Guard to escort thousands of protesters along the 50-mile march to the Capitol. Johnson’s decision was at odds with Gov at the time. George Wallace was in support of quarantine.
Riddle is a legional member of the Associated Press/Report’s American State University News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit, national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on infiltrated issues.
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