March 27, 1961 (Monday)
- Nine African-American students from Mississippi's Tougaloo College made the first effort of passive resistance to end segregation in the state capital, Jackson, by walking into the whites-only main branch of the municipal public library. After beginning the "read-in", the students declined to leave and were arrested by police. The next day, black students at Jackson State College marched to the city jail to protest the arrest of the "Tougaloo Nine", and more demonstrations followed.
- Thunderball, the ninth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, was first published, in a hardback British edition by Glidrose Productions.
- Born: Leigh Bowery, Australian performance artist, in Melbourne (died 1994)
- Died: Paul Landowski, 85, French monumental sculptor
Read more about this topic: March 1961
Famous quotes containing the word march:
“On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)