The war over federal troops in LA and the problem we all live with

There is a famous Norman Rockwell painting that stands out from the rest of his work not solely because of who we see in it but also because of who we dont see.

A little Black girl in a perfectly pressed dress with braided hair adorned by a bow walks face forward with a book and ruler in hand, looking past a big spray-painted slur on the wall: N*GGER.

She is escorted by men in yellow armbands, who represent the federal government, their heads out of frame.Also out of frame are federal troops standing guard to ensure this innocent girl, Ruby Bridges, makes it safely to her first day of school, as the state of Louisiana had defied the Supreme Courts orders to desegregate.

The image depicted is from 1960, the last time a president called in federal troops over a states objections to enforce the law. It was just three years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower had sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School.

Now, in the year 2025, a president has called for federal troops to descend onto a state against a governors orders for a different reason, sparking a legal battle over whether he is within his executive rights to do so.President Donald Trumps June 7 order to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to California during ICE protests has sparked a legal battle over executive authorityone that reached a federal appeals court and delivered Trump a win on June 20, as a panel ruled against a lower court and stated the president can keep control of guard troops for the time being (two of the three judges were Trump appointees).

Trumps use of federal troops against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass has been justified by political supporters who say there is plenty of moral cause and legal precedent for the use of troops by the executive branch.

What do you do when you have a governor whos not leading [and] is not doing anything about unrest and violence in his own state? said State Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher in an interview with CalMatters.

I think he needs to restore order, said U.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the wake of Trumps decision. Im mainly concerned about public safety, and the president has clearly got authority in his federal capacity to deal with the National Guard. So, plenty of precedent.

These justifications for the use of federal power rely not just on a misinterpretation of American history but highlight a justification for a larger campaign of suppressing all history tied to race, racism, and the fight for civil rights in our nation.The less people know, the harder, or the less inclined they will be, to challenge the powers that be, including the current administration.

During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, multiple presidents called federal troopsinto states, but only as a last resort after governors openly defied and refused to follow desegregation and civil rights laws.

It was very rare. Presidents had this power since the early 19th century, but rarely used it, says Julian Zelizer, Princeton professor of history and public affairs, in an interview with theGrio.

Zelizer says it was only after bloody violence in Selma, where images of protestors being beaten by state and local police were disseminated globally and utilized as marketing for communism over American democracy, that President Lyndon Johnson decided to send in troops in 1965.

In the case of Ruby Bridges, President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort her to desegregate her school in 1960, because angry mobs had gathered outside to block the 6-year-old. In both of these cases, states openly defied national law.In California, both Newsom and Bass were enforcing national immigration laws and said they could handle protestsit was the Trump administration that determined their efforts werent good enough.

If anything, the federal government’s intervention in LA more closely resembles darker chapters in U.S. historynamely, the covert efforts of COINTELPRO, according to Zelizer.COINTELPRO was used to disrupt Black Power and civil rights movement organizations; the kind of double agent backstabber we saw play out on the big screen in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” where Fred Hampton is killed thanks to the insider tips from a Black man working on behalf of the federal government.

That was a program where the government was intentionally trying to intimidate, scare, collect information, and just disrupt social protest. And I think thats really a big part of what the administration is doing by putting troops in Los Angeles, Zelizer tells theGrio.

The intimidation aspect of this agenda is best embodied in Vice President JD Vances visit to Los Angeles this week. During his visit, Vance celebrated the courts decision to let Trump control the National Guard as a completely legitimate and proper use of federal law enforcement and proved the point that the power of their occupation is psychological as much as it is practical.

The soldiers and Marines are still very much a necessary part of what’s going on here, because they’re worried that it’s going to flare back up,” Vance said during the trip.

“When you have violent agitators who make it impossible for law enforcement to do their jobs, it is necessary to protect them and defend them, he insisted.

Capitol officers on Jan. 6 might agree with the sentiment.Yet, the violent and deadly insurrection on Jan. 6 provides yet another example of an incident, which has been rewritten in history by many Republican leaders (save bolder voices like former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) as a peaceful and legitimate protest.

While the federal appeals court has decided President Trump can oversee National Guard troops in LA for now while mostly peaceful protests continue to play out, they also handed Governor Newsom a minor victory, noting that Trump is still accountable to courts and cannot unilaterally decide how to deploy guard troops around the country.

The court rightly rejected Trumps claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court, Gavin Newsom said via statement after the ruling.

The President is not a king and is not above the law. We will press forward with our challenge to President Trumps authoritarian use of the U.S. military soldiers against citizens.

Thanks to Norman Rockwells controversial painting of Ruby Bridges, we will always have a visual of what it meant to see federal troops come in to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Its title, The Problem We All Live With, was a nod to facing the uncomfortable and ugly no matter where you were or who you were in America during the civil unrest.

Todays problem we all live with asks us to do the same, and American democracy depends on it.

Natasha S. Alford is the Senior Vice President of TheGrio. A recognized journalist, filmmaker, and TV analyst, Alford is also the author of the award-winning book, American Negra. (HarperCollins, 2024) Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @natashasalford.