Lawrence Guyot joined the Freedom Movement in Mississippi in 1961, when he was a student at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
12 Facts About Lawrence Guyot
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Lawrence Guyot graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry in 1963.
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Lawrence Guyot directed the Congress of Racial Equality project in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and later became director of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party via the 1963 Freedom Ballot of 80,000 participants and the Summer Project of 1964.
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In 1966, Lawrence Guyot ran for Congress as an anti-war candidate.
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Lawrence Guyot was severely physically beaten many times, including while at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm, in the early 1960s.
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Lawrence Guyot has stated that his testicles were burned with sticks by police officers.
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Lawrence Guyot helped lay the groundwork for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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Lawrence Guyot received a degree in law in 1971 from Rutgers University, and then moved to Washington, DC, where he worked for the election of Marion Barry as mayor in 1978.
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Lawrence Guyot has appeared in many documentaries such as Eyes on the Prize, released in 1987.
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Lawrence Guyot continued speaking out on voting rights issues and encouraged people to vote for President Barack Obama.
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Until his retirement in 2004, Lawrence Guyot was a program monitor for the DC Department of Human Services' Office of Early Childhood Development.
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Lawrence Guyot said he had had heart problems and had suffered from diabetes.