MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — As National Guard troops arrive in Memphis, the memory of thousands of them with bayonetted rifles and tanks in 1968 is still fresh for Joe Calhoun. Back then, he marched in the streets with sanitation workers and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
King had come to support some 1,300 predominantly Black sanitation workers striking to protest inhumane treatment after a malfunctioning garbage truck killed two laborers. King led a demonstration in late March, but it turned violent when police and protesters clashed and an officer fatally shot a 16-year-old. The National Guard quickly lined the streets in response.
Click to Gallery
FILE - A relief squad of the Tennessee National Guard files across Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn., to replace troopers already stationed at strategic points in the racially tense city, March 30, 1968. The troops have been on duty in Memphis since violence erupted during a march led by Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. on March 28. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly, File)
FILE - Tennessee National Guard troopers in jeeps and trucks escort striking Memphis sanitation workers during a march through downtown Memphis, Tenn., March 30, 1968. (AP Photo, File)
Joe Calhoun poses in front of historical photos of the National Guard during the 1968 sanitation strike, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - Striking firefighters yell at working firefighters inside the fire station, as Tennessee National Guard troops guard the front entrance, on Aug. 15, 1978, in downtown Memphis. (AP Photo/Chuck Robinson, File)
FILE - Tennessee National Guard troops leap out of a truck at the Memphis Armory after being ordered into the city by Gov. Buford Ellington at the request of city officials, March 28, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. The guard was ordered after rioting and looting erupted midway through a march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in support of striking garbage workers. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell, File)
“You felt very uncomfortable just going about your daily routine, especially at night,” Calhoun said. “They were stopping cars and randomly picking people out.”
Al Lewis, then 14, still recalls a week later when Walter Cronkite said on television that King had been shot and killed in his city. Almost immediately, gunfire erupted in a cacophony Lewis said he had not heard in such volume other than on New Year’s. The National Guard quickly returned, and he saw military vehicles and troops downtown during the day and Guard members on neighborhood night patrols.
President Donald Trump announced last month that the National Guard would be deployed to combat crime in Memphis alongside authorities from a slew of federal agencies. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who supports the effort, said the troops would be deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service to “play a critical support role” for local law enforcement. Guard members won’t have tanks, according to the city.
At least nine armed Guard members wearing fatigues patrolled Friday near the Pyramid, an iconic Memphis landmark, and at a visitor welcome center along the Mississippi River. Troops donned protective vests with “military police” on them and had guns in holsters.
While state and federal authorities have been increasingly visible, troops have yet to be seen in large numbers. It was unclear how many Guard members were on the ground or expected to arrive later.
For years, Memphis has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. While this year’s statistics show improvement in several categories, including murders, many acknowledge that violence remains a problem.
The city is a majority Black epicenter for civil rights, where residents like Calhoun and Lewis remember the Guard responding during more than one period of unrest. A decade after King's assassination, troops were in Memphis during a strike by firefighters and police when parts of the city were set ablaze.
Calhoun, 75, remains an activist and recently marched against the current deployment. He had hoped he would never again see the National Guard in his city.
“I’ve got four grandchildren, so much of what I do is to help make a better world for them, so they don’t have to go through the same thing. But it’s taken a lot longer than I thought it would,” he said.
Lee has previously said he doesn't expect many more than 150 troops in Memphis, though he's since said there is no estimate.
“You talked about the National Guard being in Memphis at key moments; I think this is a key moment for that city,” Lee said in responding to a reporter's question. “They’ve been plagued with violence.”
Memphis was among several places in the South where the National Guard was deployed during the Civil Rights Movement, including Little Rock, Arkansas; Oxford, Mississippi; and places in Alabama.
Looking back at 1968, Calhoun recalled sleeping in the Clayborn Temple and making the now-famous “I AM A MAN” signs for sanitation workers. And he remembers officers throwing tear gas into the church.
Associated Press accounts document the ensuing military presence, including this description from March 30, 1968: “Heavily armed police and 4,000 national guardsmen, sent to preserve order … patrolled the area around historic Beale Street. Plyboarded shop fronts and broken glass stood as testimony to the Thursday violence.”
As demonstrators emerged from Clayborn Temple for another mass march, AP documented how “the National Guard roared past in a show of strength which included four armored personnel carriers with mounted .30 caliber machine guns, six jeeps and several trucks filled with personnel.”
King blamed violence surrounding the marches on a “small group of young militants.”
“I wouldn’t have come if I had known the outbreak of violence was possible,” King said in an AP account. “I would have held up the march.”
Calhoun said the soldiers, some armed and others in armored vehicles, presented “a very imposing sight for young kids to see that on the way to school, to see that on the way to church or whatever. So, we do not want to see that at all.”
Additionally, he said Guard members at checkpoints targeted and harassed people who attended the 1968 marches downtown.
A week after the violence, King was back in Memphis, where he promised to lead a second, peaceful march despite a federal court order against it. But he was killed by a sniper while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4.
The assassination sparked civil unrest in Memphis and other U.S. cities.
Some 4,000 National Guard troops were reactivated in Memphis and a curfew reimposed, according to AP reports.
Lewis, now 71, saw Guard vehicles and armed Guard members on foot in the downtown area, but he never saw them fire their weapons or get physical with anyone. He did see some young men throw Molotov cocktails into a furniture store, setting it ablaze.
“I didn’t know what was happening. It was like an invasion of sorts,” Lewis said. “I felt fear and excitement, if you can understand the two happening at once. I didn’t know what was going to happen and how far it was going to go.”
In 1978, Lewis was working for the U.S. Postal Service when local police and firefighters went on strike. Because of his job, he was allowed to drive home from work and pass through Guard checkpoints in the early morning darkness, despite a curfew. He recalls Guard members putting out fires.
“The police and the fire department were on strike, and there were a lot of fires being set and a lot of looting going on,” Lewis said. “Still, I didn’t feel the same menace that I felt like I did when King got killed.”
Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, has listed some roles he thinks the Guard could help with now. They include monitoring police cameras, “beautifying” neighborhoods, or helping homeless people.
Young has referenced the deployment after King's assassination, saying he understands community fears about the upcoming action.
“We don’t want to invoke those same images here,” Young said.
Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Associated Press corporate archivist Sarit Hand in New York contributed.
FILE - A relief squad of the Tennessee National Guard files across Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn., to replace troopers already stationed at strategic points in the racially tense city, March 30, 1968. The troops have been on duty in Memphis since violence erupted during a march led by Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. on March 28. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly, File)
FILE - Tennessee National Guard troopers in jeeps and trucks escort striking Memphis sanitation workers during a march through downtown Memphis, Tenn., March 30, 1968. (AP Photo, File)
Joe Calhoun poses in front of historical photos of the National Guard during the 1968 sanitation strike, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - Striking firefighters yell at working firefighters inside the fire station, as Tennessee National Guard troops guard the front entrance, on Aug. 15, 1978, in downtown Memphis. (AP Photo/Chuck Robinson, File)
FILE - Tennessee National Guard troops leap out of a truck at the Memphis Armory after being ordered into the city by Gov. Buford Ellington at the request of city officials, March 28, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. The guard was ordered after rioting and looting erupted midway through a march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in support of striking garbage workers. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell, File)
President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act to justify deploying troops as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement persist in Minneapolis.
Trump made the threat to “quickly put an end to the travesty” after a federal officer shot a man in the leg while being attacked with a shovel and broom handle on Wednesday. The incident further heightened the sense of fear and anger radiating across the city a week after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the head.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
The Latest:
The governor of Maine and the mayors of its two largest cities acknowledged widespread speculation that ICE enforcement actions are imminent in the state, which is home to large immigrant communities from Somalia and other African nations.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said aggressive enforcement actions that undermine civil rights are “not welcome” in the state. Mills, the mayors of Portland and Lewiston and Maine’s largest school district all acknowledged that the possibility of ICE enforcement has created a nervous atmosphere in Maine.
“But if they come here, I want any federal agents — and the president of the United States — to know what this state stands for: We stand for the rule of law. We oppose violence. We stand for peaceful protest. We stand for compassion, for integrity and justice,” Mills said in video released Wednesday.
Democrats across the country are proposing state law changes to rein in federal immigration officers and protect the public following the shooting death of a protester in Minneapolis and the wounding of two people in Portland, Oregon.
Many of the measures have been proposed in some form for years in Democratic-led states, but their momentum is growing as legislatures return to work amid President Donald Trump’s national immigration crackdown following the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. Republicans are pushing back, blaming protesters for impeding enforcement of immigration laws.
When Trump entered office, immigration was among his strongest issues. An AP-NORC Poll published Thursday suggests that it has since faded, a troubling sign for Trump who campaigned on crackdowns to illegal immigration.
Just 38% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling immigration, down from 49% at the start of his second term. The most recent poll was conducted January 8-11, shortly after the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
There are still signs that Americans give Trump some leeway on immigration issues. Nearly half of Americans — 45% — say Trump has “helped” immigration and border security in his second term.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote Thursday on social media, “Motor Tanker Veronica had previously passed through Venezuelan waters, and was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”
The Veronica is the sixth tanker seized by U.S. forces as the Trump administration moves to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products, and the fourth since the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid almost two weeks ago.
Noem wrote that the raid was carried out with “close coordination with our colleagues” in the military as well as the State and Justice departments.
“Our heroic Coast Guard men and women once again ensured a flawlessly executed operation, in accordance with international law,” Noem added.
The Associated Press has reached out to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for comment on Trump’s latest threat to invoke the Insurrection Act.
During a televised speech before the latest shooting, Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”
“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
Threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops to Minneapolis, Trump noted that presidents have used the 19th century law many times. This is true — but they haven’t necessarily done it in the circumstances found in Minneapolis, where the tensions have arisen from Trump already sending federal authorities into the city.
In modern times, the act has been used to mobilize troops to help local authorities or to ensure a federal court order is carried out.
The law was last used in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to help quell riots in Los Angeles after local officials asked for the assistance. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all invoked it during the Civil Rights Movement to help enforce desegregation orders in Southern states where state and local governments were resisting.
A 1964 Justice Department memo said the act can apply in three circumstances: when a state requests help, when deployment is needed to enforce a federal court order, or when “state and local law enforcement have completely broken down.”
In a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday’s shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a person from Venezuela who was in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.
After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.
The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security. O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.
Jacob Frey spoke Wednesday night after federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd while protesters threw rocks and shot fireworks.
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” he said.
Frey described a federal force that is five times as big as the city’s 600-officer police force and has “invaded” the city, scaring and angering residents, some of whom want the officers to “fight ICE agents.”
The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down.
Trump made the threat Thursday after a federal officer trying to make an arrest shot a man in the leg Wednesday after being attacked with a shovel and broom handle. The incident further heightened the sense of fear and anger radiating across the city a week after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the head.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.
▶ Read more about Trump’s latest threats to Minnesota
An AP-NORC poll from January found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance as president. That’s virtually unchanged from March 2025, shortly after he took office for the second time.
The new poll also shows subtle signs of vulnerability for Trump, mainly regarding the economy and immigration.
Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.
It’s the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.
▶ Read more about the cross-party effort
Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.
▶ Read more about the war powers vote
While President Donald Trump says he’ll take action on Greenland whether its people “ like it or not, ” his newly handpicked U.S. special envoy is setting off on his own approach.
Gov. Jeff Landry, appointed as envoy in December, said he is not interested in meeting diplomats. The Republican has not visited the Arctic island and did not attend Wednesday’s meeting at the White House that included Danish officials, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. However, the governor was scheduled to travel to Washington on Thursday and Friday for meetings that include the topic of Greenland, Landry’s spokesperson Kate Kelly said.
▶ Read more about Landry 's new role
Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)
FILE - President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
