Lawrence Guyot, a leader in the civil rights movement, lawyer and
community activist who fought to empower the poor and disenfranchised
from his native Mississippi to the District, died Nov. 23 at his home in
Mount Rainier. He was 73.He had a heart ailment, his daughter, Julie Guyot-Diangone said.
As a civil rights activist in Mississippi in the 1960s, Mr. Guyot
(pronounced GHEE-ott) endured arrests and beatings as he fought for
voting rights and political representation for African Americans. He
showed courage by standing up against authorities who had beaten and, in
some cases, killed civil rights workers.
Mr. Guyot began working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee in 1962 and became director of the 1964 Freedom Summer
Project in Hattiesburg, Miss. He was the founding chairman of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought to include African
Americans among the Democratic Party’s delegates to the national
convention.
