Georgia Agencies Spent $675,000 to Protect Civil Rights Marchers

State and local agencies spent more than $675,000 last month to protect civil rights marchers in all-white Forsyth County, the governor’s office said Tuesday.

Almost half of that money went to transport, pay and equip 1,700 National Guardsmen who surrounded an estimated 20,000 marchers as they walked just over a mile to the courthouse square in Cumming on Jan. 24.

The march followed a smaller one on Jan. 17 in which a biracial group of about 75 marchers was met by a group of about 400 Ku Klux Klan-led counterdemonstrators, some of whom threw stones, bottles and mud.

The violence led civil rights leaders from around the country to join the march the next weekend, which grew from early estimates of 2,000 marchers to about 20,000 participants and about 1,500 counterdemonstrators.

Panel to Be Named

Barbara Morgan, Gov. Joe Frank Harris’ press secretary, said use of the Georgia Army and Air National Guard cost $325,800. Most of the rest of the money was spent on state investigation agents, state troopers and local law enforcement officials, she said.

Meanwhile, the president of the Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday that six members of a county community relations commission will be named Monday.