LBJ Set to Call Alabama Guard

Mar. 18, 1965 - President Johnson offered tonight to mobilize the Alabama National Guard to protect the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers next week.

In rejecting a request by Governor George Wallace for “federal civilian forces” to police the demonstration, the President pointed out that the Governor could mobilize the Guard if he felt such protection was needed.

He then said that if the Governor did not do so and conditions warranted, he would call up the Guard himself.

The President’s statement was made to a hastily summoned news conference in his White House office tonight. He had delayed his departure for a weekend at his ranch in Texas because of the developments in the Alabama situation.

Some 3,000 demonstrators are expected to participate in the march. They will sleep en route under a huge circus tent.

Mayor Art Hanes of Birmingham said he would lead a countermarch of segregationists from Montgomery to Selma, also starting Sunday.

During a countermarch in Montgomery today in which segregationists carried picket signs reading “Who Needs N*****s,” a fistfight and the arrest of 90 civil rights advocates deepened racial tensions in that city.

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