Lawrence Guyot
Lawrence Guyot was born in 1939 in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Growing up he had rarely suffered racism. However, once a student at Tougaloo University in a different part of Mississippi, Guyot experienced the real cruelty of racism. In 1971, Guyot attended Rutgers University where he received a law degree. He is committed to public service as an employer of the District of Columbia's Department of Health and Human Services. He continues to be active in civil rights advocacy and the advancement of racial equality. Guyot is often chosen to deliver leadership training conferences at organizations and institutions including AmeriCorps, the University of Mississippi at Oxford, and Georgetown University.
Civil Rights Era
Guyot joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962 and was an active member, particularly in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He helped organize and develop voter registration drives throughout Mississippi. He was arrested twice during his time with SNCC, both times after he asked local police to intervene on behalf of African-Americans who were being discriminated against. He was a chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and a delegate to the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He could not attend, however, because he had been arrested during a protest in Hattiesburg. Guyot remains a strong advocate of the protest techniques employed by SNCC.
Bibliography
Information for this biography was gathered from the following sources: