Black soprano Marian Anderson was honored on her seventy-fifth birthday, 27 February 1977, with a concert at Carnegie Hall attended by First Lady Rosalyn Carter.

William Armstrongreceived the Newberry Medal for Children's Literature on 22 January 1970 for his novel Sounder.

On 3 May 1976 Saul Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt's Gift. In October of that year he became the first American writer since John Steinbeck in 1962 to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

After almost twenty years of recording, rock 'n' roller Chuck Berry scored his first — and only — number one hit with the novelty song "My Ding-a-Ling" in October 1972.

In March 1970 three women won National Book Awards: Elizabeth Bishop for her poetry collection, Lillian Hellman for her memoir An Unfinished Woman, and Joyce Carol Oates for her novel Them.

Writer Jorge Luis Borges was awarded the first twenty-five-thousand-dollar...