Lawrence Guyot

Lawrence Guyot was a Tougaloo College student and SNCC field organizer who became chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party from its 1964 founding. Arrested with Fannie Lou Hamer, Annell Ponder, and June Johnson at the Winona Trailways bus station on June 9, 1963, he was beaten in Montgomery County jail. Across his civil-rights career he was arrested an estimated 100+ times in Mississippi for voter-registration work. He led the MFDP's 1964 challenge to the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Atlantic City Democratic Convention and continued political organizing in Washington, D.C. until his death.