Premiere of the films Sweet Bird of Youth and Period of Adjustment,
based on works by Tennessee
Williams.
William
Faulkner receives his second Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Reivers
and a Gold Medal for Fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Walker Percy
receives the National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Moviegoer.
September 30:
As James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi, riots begin on campus in which two people were killed and many others injured.
National Guard troops are quickly committed and President Kennedy orders 20,000 federal troops to the area.
July 6:William Faulkner dies of a
heart attack in Byhalia, Mississippi. He is buried July 7 in St.
Peter's Cemetery in Oxford.