Lista de Personas Famosas que murieron en 1961

In 1950, Oliver Brown was recruited to be part of the Topeka NAACP legal action to desegregate public elementary schools in the city. At the time, Brown was a welder for the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and was studying to become a minister. Attorney Charles Scott, who was his childhood friend, asked him to join the roster of parents who would become plaintiffs in the organization’s case against the Topeka Board of Education.

Eleanora Derenkowsky conocida como Maya Deren fue una directora de cine, bailarina, coreógrafa, poeta y escritora ucraniana nacionalizada estadounidense. Fue una de las principales realizadoras de cine experimental de los años 40. Se la considera la madre de cine underground, surrealista y de vanguardia en Estados Unidos. Sus películas se inspiran en el psicoanálisis y el surrealismo. Su obra Meshes of the Afternoon, premiada en el Festival Internacional de Cannes, está considerada una de las películas experimentales más importantes e influyentes del siglo XX. El cortometraje de carácter feminista explora las imágenes del interior de una mujer, en cuyos sueños tiene un terror hacia los objetos de su vida cotidiana.

Edgar Allan Poe was Attorney General of the State of Maryland from 1911 to 1915. He was born in Baltimore, the son of former Maryland Attorney General John Prentiss Poe. He was named for his second cousin, twice removed, the celebrated author Edgar Allan Poe, who died in 1849.

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, más conocida como "Abuela Moses", fue una renombrada artista folclórica estadounidense. Es a menudo citada por haber comenzado la carrera en las artes a una edad avanzada.

Friedrich Krebs was the mayor of Frankfurt, Germany from 1933 to 1945. In March 1933, Krebs, a fervent anti-Semite and Nazi, ousted the previous mayor, Ludwig Landmann, who was Jewish. Within two weeks Krebs fired all Jewish city employees, even before the German Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service removed Jews from government service.