Great Alabama 650
2026-10-01 00:00 - 23:59 (America/Chicago) | Weiss Lake Boat Launch, Centre, 35960, United States
October 2026 TBD Note: This is a nonstop 10-day race. Viewing locations cannot be guaranteed, but spectators can follow the race in real time using live tracking at AL650.com.

Free for spectators. Racer registration fees apply (November – August 15, for qualified racers only).

The Great Alabama 650 is held annually in the fall and spans across 10 days, and while we’re glad to be sending you this information now, we’d love to work with you again in January 2026 so future listings for the race can go live earlier in the year. This will help ensure fans — both in Alabama and beyond — can access accurate information well in advance. For Brand USA outreach, please also note that the 2025 race includes international participants, with confirmed racers from the UK and Germany, which highlights its growing global draw.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GreatAlabama650

Moundville Native American Festival
2026-10-01 00:00 - 2026-10-03 23:59
Festival hours are 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Thursday and 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.Join Moundville Archaeological Park from October 1-3, 2026 for the Moundville Native American Festival! Bring your family and friends to meet Native American artisans, see traditional dances, listen to stories and music, and support local and Native American businesses at an ancient city on the Black Warrior River.

Admission is $10 at the gate for adults, students, and seniors. Children 5-years-old and under are free.

Moundville Archaeological Park is 13 miles south of Tuscaloosa off Alabama Highway 69 and the address is 634 Mound State Parkway, Moundville, AL 35474-6413. Information on the schedule, performers, demonstrators, and vendors will be updated on our website at festival.museums.ua.edu

Kentuck Festival of the Arts
2026-10-03 00:00 - 23:59 | Snow Hinton Park, 21st St E, Tuscaloosa, 35404, United States
October TBD, 2026

The Kentuck Festival of the Arts is an annual event that celebrates creativity, culture, and community in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Held at Snow Hinton Park every October, this nationally recognized festival attracts over 15,000 visitors from across the country for a weekend filled with inspiring art, live entertainment, and hands-on experiences. The Kentuck Festival has been named a top ten event to attend by the Alabama Department of Tourism and named a “Local Legacy” by the US Library of Congress.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/KentuckArt/

Huntsville International Festival
2026-10-03 11:00 - 16:00 | Jaycee Community Building, 2180 Airport Road SW, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Event time subject to change

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/people/International-Society-of-Huntsville-IFEST/100066625842618/

We the Readers - The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao
2026-10-06 13:00 - 14:00 | Downtown Huntsville Library, 915 Monroe St Southwest, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Celebrate the 250th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence this year at the Downtown Huntsville Public Library with a search for The Great American Novel.

This month we are reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, published 2007.

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

A Walk Through Time
2026-10-18 14:00 - 16:30
Time: 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.Rain Date: Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026Free admission

Many of Gadsden’s early settlers and founding fathers are buried at Forrest Cemetery. Famous, not-so-famous and even some infamous people are also interred there.

Modern-day, influential people gladly participate in this annual event by dressing in period costumes, bringing wonderful props and “reliving” the lives of the people laid to rest there. Patrons who have attended the cemetery stroll repeatedly comment that this is a “painless dose” of historical facts, and local school systems have encouraged their teachers to utilize this venue. For this reason, there is no admission charge, though donations to improve the cemetery are accepted.

USS Alabama Battleship Living History Crew Drill
2026-10-24 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-12-05 00:00 - 23:59
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/USSALABAMABattleshipMemorialPark/

We the Readers - The Sympathizer
2026-11-03 13:00 - 14:00 | Downtown Huntsville Library, 915 Monroe St Southwest, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Celebrate the 250th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence this year at the Downtown Huntsville Public Library with a search for The Great American Novel. This month we are reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, published 2015. The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum 25th Anniversary Celebration
2026-11-07 09:30 - 14:00 | Jaycee Community Building, 2180 Airport Road SW, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Celebrate the U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum 25th Anniversary at the Jaycee Community Building!

Event: U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum 25th Anniversary Celebration

Date: Saturday, November 7, 2026

Time: 9:30am-2pm

Location: Jaycee Community Building, 2180 Airport Rd SW, Huntsville, AL 35801, USA

Event Description:The U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum 25th Anniversary Celebration will be held on Saturday, November 7th, 2026 at 9:30am-2pm at the Jaycee Community Building, across the street from the Veterans Museum. The event will be free to attend and open to the public. The museum will be open 10am-4pm, as usual.

AGENDA:9:30am Doors Open at Jaycee’s Community Building10am Event2pm Celebration Concludes at Jaycees Community Building

Living History Day
2026-11-07 10:00 - 16:00 | U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum, 2060 Airport Rd SW, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Join us Saturday, November 7th | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM for a one-of-a-kind, immersive experience as re-enactors are stationed throughout the museum, engaging with visitors and bringing America’s history to life.

This special living history event is part of the celebration of:

America’s 250th AnniversaryUSVMM’s 25th Anniversary

This is something we’ve never done before, and you won’t want to miss it!

U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum, 2060 Airport Rd SW, Huntsville, AlabamaRegular museum admission appliesSaturday, November 7th10 AM – 4 PM Bring your family, invite your friends, and be part of this historic celebration!

Publix Battleship 12K
2026-11-15 08:00 - 11:30
The Publix Battleship 12K, a patriotic run to honor those who have served, was started in 2015 as a way to pay tribute to those heroes who defend our freedom. Many veterans have not received the heroes welcome that those returning from WWII received, and it was with this in mind that the event was created. Whether someone deployed to combat or only served a brief time, every man and woman who has put on the uniform to keep our country free deserves to be thanked.

We the Readers - The Night Watchman
2026-12-01 13:00 - 14:00 | Downtown Huntsville Library, 915 Monroe St Southwest, Huntsville, 35801, United States
Celebrate the 250th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence this year at the Downtown Huntsville Public Library with a search for The Great American Novel.

This month we are reading The Night Watchman by Louise Erdich, published 2020.

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice. In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.
