Despite Trump’s tough tone now, things were much worse in Washington when the National Guard was rolled out in 1968
- - Despite Trump’s tough tone now, things were much worse in Washington when the National Guard was rolled out in 1968
Andy Rose, CNNAugust 17, 2025 at 3:00 AM
National Guard troops stand on 9th Street between L and M Streets in the northwest section of Washington, DC, on April 6, 1968. - Bob Schutz/AP
Fear in the streets. Buildings burning. Law enforcement struggling to tamp down violence and control chaos.
It’s the kind of scene that has brought a federal military response to US cities in the past. And it’s a vision of Washington, DC, that President Donald Trump is invoking to bring the military to the city’s streets today.
“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” Trump said in a news conference last week, announcing his plans to federalize law enforcement in the capital – including the deployment of 800 National Guard troops.
While the government has announced some arrests this week – many of them immigration offenses – the scene in Washington has been a far cry from the description Trump gave when announcing the federal law enforcement takeover, saying the District “has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.”
Since their arrival this week, members of the guard have spent much of their time posted near landmarks and standing next to armored vehicles, amiably obliging tourists who request selfies.
It’s a noticeably different situation than the chaotic one that prompted the biggest military callup in Washington since the Civil War – the 1968 riots following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in Tennessee.
“You saw smoke, and you saw flames. And you see cars speeding by. ‘There’s a riot! The city’s burning!’” said Brig Owens in a 2014 interview for an oral history project. Owens, who died in 2022, was a player for Washington’s NFL team who was called up for active duty with the guard during the riots.
A burned-out building, which was destroyed by arsonists during a night of burning and looting triggered by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is seen on April 6, 1968. - Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
“It was as if war had come to the city. At least for a small kid, that’s the way it felt,” Washington, DC, historian John DeFerrari, who was 10 years old at the time, told CNN.
“I remember being out and playing in the front yard of our house and seeing a military Jeep come by on patrol. Two soldiers there. A machine gun mounted.”
Locals dispute dire descriptions
To hear the president tell it, the situation in Washington is just as dire today.
“People are so happy to see our military going into DC and getting these thugs out,” Trump said.
But many local elected officials are expressing less enthusiasm for the federal action and the impression the president is giving of the District.
“One thing that has everybody pretty mad, especially me, is the characterization of our city and our residents,” responded Mayor Muriel Bowser. “We don’t live in a dirty city. We don’t have neighborhoods that should be bulldozed.”
After spiking in 2023, violent crime in Washington has been on the decline, according to Metropolitan Police Department records.
“He’s painted this dystopian vision, and it just doesn’t track with the facts on the ground,” DC Councilmember Charles Allen told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday.
The National Guard was last mobilized in DC in 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests. Guard mmembers famously helped to clear out demonstrators as President Trump made his way across Lafayette Square to hold a Bible in front of a vandalized church. There has been a dispute over whether the guard was already planning to move protesters away from the White House or was specifically clearing a path for the president’s photo opportunity.
Before 2020, the guard and its predecessor – the DC Militia – were placed on federal active duty only 10 times in the District, according to the Congressional Research Service, including a multiyear deployment during the Civil War.
National Guard members take a break from the heat at the Lincoln Memorial while protesters demonstrate against police brutality and racism in Washington, DC, on June 6, 2020. - Win McNamee/Getty ImagesMLK’s death brings anger to the streets
The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis on April 4, 1968, was a shock to the world. But it was felt as a shattering blow in Washington, which had the highest percentage of Black residents of any major US city at the time, according to The Washington Post.
Paul Delaney, cofounder of the National Association of Black Journalists, was a reporter for The Washington Star newspaper at the time and knew the bottled-up rage of the community – already dealing with “white flight” and underinvestment – could explode at the news.
“I drove up and sure enough, groups of protestors had formed on 14th Street near Pitts Motel,” Delaney, who is now 92 years old, told CNN. “They began marching to U Street and began breaking windows, looting, etc. I marched with them, hiding my notebook so they wouldn’t think I was a cop or some kind of spy. This went on through the night.”
Within hours, businesses were in flames. Hundreds would ultimately be looted or torched, The New York Times reported, as fury over King’s death expressed itself in the devastation of the several neighborhoods, including the historically Black community of Shaw.
By the weekend, the DC National Guard was part of a deployment of more than 13,000 soldiers – most of them full-time Army and Marines – trying to bring the emotionally exhausted city under control.
“You had little mobs throughout the city, and you have to be aware of what those consequences could be if you get caught up in that mob,” Owens said.
In contrast to the current administration, President Lyndon B. Johnson was reluctant to immediately bring the federal military onto the streets of the nation’s capital, waiting a full day before invoking the Insurrection Act to mobilize troops.
A National Guard soldier stands at the corner of 4th and H Streets in northeast Washington, DC, on April 6, 1968. - AP
“But then you had lots of destruction, lots of fires going on. Firemen were being harassed to some degree by the rioters,” said DeFerrari. “So, the local police chief and the mayor said listen, we need federal help to control this situation.”
Before calm was restored to the community after four days, more than 6,000 people were arrested, according to the National Archives, and 13 were dead. Most of the victims died in burned or collapsed buildings, The Washington Post reported.
“You had to be very careful walking through the various neighborhoods, and you didn’t know if someone was going to throw something at you or if someone was going to take a shot at you,” Owens said. “Very intense time.”
After the violence was brought under control, President Johnson toured the damage from the air, Secret Service agent Clint Hill, then head of the president’s protective detail, told The Washington Post in 2018.
“It was quite a sight to behold. It was unbelievable. A major portion of the city had actually burned, and it’s something I’ll never forget,” said Hill, who was was tragically familiar with witnessing tragic events. Only five years earlier, Hill had rescued Jacqueline Kennedy in a moving limousine after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a Dallas motorcade.
“(The riots) left this pall over the community,” said DeFerrari. “Devastation and a sense of the old community being lost, and what is the replacement of that?”
Troops patrol a downtown street in Washington, DC, after President Johnson ordered them in to help police on April 5, 1968. - Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesTrump tests limits of his authority
It is the second time this year President Trump has posted guard members on the streets of a city whose leaders didn’t ask for it. The president federalized 4,000 California National Guard troops in June in response to immigration protests in downtown Los Angeles that had turned confrontational with federal agents.
Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration, contesting Trump’s legal ability to take over the state guard without an open “rebellion” against the government. A judge is considering whether to declare that the president’s action illegal following a three-day bench trial.
But circumstances are much different in Washington, a federally controlled district that does not have the same constitutional protections as states.
“Yes, the president can deploy the National Guard in DC, and they are allowed to perform law enforcement functions,” said CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.
Still, even the president does not have unilateral control over the city. By law, Trump cannot extend his 30-day takeover of DC law enforcement without the approval of Congress, which is on its summer recess, unless he declares a national emergency.
The District’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, filed suit against the Trump administration Friday, arguing the president has already exceeded his authority by trying to force the Metropolitan Police Department to accept a new “emergency commissioner,” something Schwalb called a “hostile takeover” of the department.
It took decades of redevelopment and gentrification, but the communities left in ruins after the 1968 uprising now show no visible signs of the violence that upended the city.
DC’s Shaw neighborhood is now billed by the city’s marketing organization as filled with “cool local shops, foodie restaurants, concert halls and African American history.” Row houses in what were once considered dangerous streets now sell for more than a million dollars.
For those who have seen the devastation and rebuilding of the city up close, the decision to call in the military now is especially troubling.
“I think there very clearly is not an emergency in many Washingtonians’ minds,” said DeFerrari. “I think many Washingtonians think that this is quite unnecessary.”
A member of the US National Guard walks past military vehicles on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on August 14, 2025. - Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images
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