Public programs from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Upcoming events
Duck Race
Auburn Village Auburn, New Hampshire · Auburn Village Auburn, New Hampshire
10 a.m.–3 p.m. ET Thousands gather each September for a fun-filled family event hosted by the Auburn Historical Association. The Duck Race is the main attraction with prizes for the ten fastest ducks, including a top prize of $1,000! There will be food trucks, local artisans and authors, a small petting farm, an apple pie contest, a kids baking contest, music and climbing wall. Active demonstrations of wool spinning and carding, cider pressing, blacksmithing, rug braiding, pottery making and so much more are ongoing continuously during the day. A parade to celebrate our country's 250th birthday will proceed down Hooksett Road.
Feed Me Now and Evermore: The Enduring Power of African American Sunday Suppers
American History Museum · American History Museum
Rhythms, Roots, Recipes: Community Stories of Food and Music brings together cooking demonstrations, live music, and storytelling. Each program in the series explores traditions that animate families and communities across the United States—and beyond. In many African American homes, the Sunday supper remains an important moment to reconnect among family, honor ancestral ties, and share recipes reflecting history, faith, and community. In this cooking demonstration, chef and artist Roscoe Hall and author and food historian Adrian Miller explore why the Sunday supper continues to be a cornerstone of family and cultural life. As Hall prepares brown butter crab rice and gumbo, Arkansas-based S. Juain Young and Artists United perform songs from the African American church that have long nourished hearts, souls, and movements.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Washington, D.C. · Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Washington, D.C.
6–8 p.m. ET Celebrate the final weeks of hometown DC, a touring exhibition and invitation to connect with the fabric of the city. The “cubes” will come together at MLK Library for the culminating exhibit. This event will feature a performance by Verbal Gymnastics Theater Company.
Neptune’s Park Virginia Beach, VA · Neptune’s Park Virginia Beach, VA
6–11 p.m. ET Two legendary festivals are joining hands for an evening of music, dance, and fellowship on the Virginia Beach boardwalk! We’ll build community, share music and farming stories, and dance with the crashing waves behind us. Farm Aid Family Reunion: “We the Farmers” Takeover is presented in partnership with the 52nd Annual Neptune Festival Boardwalk Weekend and in collaboration with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Artists and farmers gathering on this stage steward a living tradition of music and storytelling, rooted in land, community and the never-yielding, inspirational pursuit of a more just, nourished, and loving world. Their stories, songs and talent represent the ongoing legacy of voices that uplift and encourage our march towards justice, from our fields to our plates.
Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater Virginia Beach, VA · Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater Virginia Beach, VA
Each year, Farm Aid artists and board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Margo Price and Nathaniel Rateliff host an annual festival to raise funds to support Farm Aid’s work with family farmers and to inspire people to choose family farm food. Since 1985, Farm Aid, with the support of the artists who contribute their performances each year, has raised more than $90 million to support programs that help farmers thrive, expand the reach of the Good Food Movement, take action to change the dominant system of industrial agriculture and promote food from family farms.
Chinatown Philadelphia, PA · Chinatown Philadelphia, PA
The Mid-Autumn Festival dates back thousands of years as a seasonal celebration in several Asian cultures, focused on families and communities gathering to celebrate abundance under the Harvest Moon. In the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Asian Americans United hosts an annual street festival with programming that includes lion dances, Korean drumming, folktale-based games, arts activities, and much more.
We Tell These Truths: Music Is a Universal Language (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Detroit Shipping Company Detroit, MI · Detroit Shipping Company Detroit, MI
2–4:30 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Madame XD (Xiao Dong Wei), Taiwan Acrobats Troupe, Great Lakes Taiko Ensemble. Presented in partnership with the Pan-Asian Cultural Celebration International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit.
The Great Valley Gathering is a free, three-day public event celebrating the living traditions, music, dance, storytelling, craft, and foodways that shape California’s Central Valley. Produced by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and rooted in the region’s rich agricultural history, the festival highlights a broad range of cherished expressions from diverse communities—Indigenous, immigrant, occupational, sacred, and more.
This Land Is... Sunday Supper and Conversation Series
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA · The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA
5–6:30 p.m. PT The Huntington’s “This Land Is ...” initiative invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land, drawing from library, art, and botanical collections to spotlight relationships between place, U.S. history, and American identities. A series of four “Sunday Suppers” focuses on particular Los Angeles neighborhoods, diaspora communities, and native ingredients.
ReelAbilities ReDISCovery Presentation: The Flying Ace
Black Film Center & Archive Indiana University Bloomington Bloomington, IN · Black Film Center & Archive Indiana University Bloomington Bloomington, IN
7–9 p.m. ET Since its beginnings as a New York City film festival in 2007, ReelAbilities has grown into an international organization using disability-focused cinema year-round to improve storytelling, access, and opportunity. Its new ReDISCovery initiative uses landmark film to connect history, community, culture, and access through four interrelated pillars of partnership, programming, presentation, and perspective. Featuring an all-Black cast, The Flying Ace (1926) is a silent drama about a World War I aviator who returns to his job as a railroad detective just as the paymaster and company payroll disappear. Among its most memorable performers is Steve “Peg” Reynolds, a Black amputee actor and stuntman playing an amputee character, a rarity on screen both then and now.
Girard Park Lafayette, LA · Girard Park Lafayette, LA
Festivals Acadiens et Créoles has its roots in the cultural revival movements of the 1970s, uniting three gatherings founded to celebrate the music, foodways, and craft traditions of South Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole communities. More than fifty years later, the festival has grown into one of the largest free public events in Louisiana, expanding to include a symposium, a road race, and a wide range of cultural programming. It endures as a vibrant act of cultural “self-celebration,” honoring the distinct yet intertwined traditions of Cajun and Creole Louisiana while encouraging both preservation and innovation in music, craft, and foodways.
Morgan State University Baltimore, MD · Morgan State University Baltimore, MD
For Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), homecoming represents more than sport rivalries; it is a celebration of history, tradition, and resilience. Each year, parades, concerts, competitions, football game days, and other activities bring scores of alumni and students together to reaffirm commitments and create new memories. Drawing from the theme “Morgan Pride: Making Memories. Leaving Legacies,” the 2026 Morgan State University homecoming creates a space for the Morgan community to continue that legacy of pride and joy.
Brown's Island Richmond, VA · Brown's Island Richmond, VA
12–6 p.m. ET The Virginia Folklife Program of Virginia Humanities presents “Dance Revolution” at the 2026 Richmond Folk Festival. Community dance groups from across the Commonwealth will offer performances and workshops that explore how Virginians can step into the future, together. Moving together, with joy, might be just exactly the revolution we need now.
Since 1974, Tucson Meet Yourself has invited artists, performers, home cooks, and other culture bearers from across the Arizona-Sonora region to demonstrate their heritage and the practices they pass from generation to generation. The signature public program of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, Tucson Meet Yourself proudly celebrates and interrogates the meaning of folklife, tradition, and community, transforming downtown Tucson into a site of vibrant cultural exchange.
Elgin Area Historical Society & History Museum 360 Park St. Elgin, IL · Elgin Area Historical Society & History Museum 360 Park St. Elgin, IL
2–3 p.m. CT Join one of the foundational founding fathers in a discussion of what rights you hold most dear. Engage in civil debate about how our imperfect nation has endured, and how it might yet “be good and do good.” Share your American story with John Adams, an American whose family roots go back to 1632, the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Mayflower.
Lower Manhattan New York, NY · Lower Manhattan New York, NY
The People’s Poetry Gathering, founded as a biennial event in 1999 by City Lore and Poets House, with Bowery Poetry joining soon after, assembles poets from New York City and beyond to pursue discourse, exchange, and cultural preservation through poetry. In 2026, the gathering returns to Lower Manhattan for the first time in twenty years. It will feature performances and workshops by an array of artists, including Indigenous, folk, youth, and literary poets and musicians, as well as collaborations with iconic venues and restaurants, free writing workshops, and a POEMobile initiative that will visit all five boroughs projecting poems onto walls and buildings alongside live readings and music.
Italian American Heritage Month (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Macomb Center for Performing Arts Clinton Township, MI · Macomb Center for Performing Arts Clinton Township, MI
2–5 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Maestro Francesco Mamola and Alfonzo Brandi (guitarist). Presented in partnership with the N.O.I. Foundation (Nuovi Orizzonti Italiani).
Zion Episcopal Church Talbotton, GA · Zion Episcopal Church Talbotton, GA
A stunning example of rural Gothic architecture and Georgia’s centuries-old Episcopal infrastructure, Zion Church in Talbotton has stood at the heart of the state’s historical and cultural preservation efforts for many years. Its annual Talbotton Blues Festival is one of the many fundraising and culture-sustaining events produced by Zion Church Restoration, Inc. and the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and features local artisans, cooks, and blues musicians.
The largest and longest-running event of its kind, Exposure is an annual festival, fundraiser, competition, and skate clinic in Encinitas, California, that champions the growing and dynamic universe of women’s skateboarding. Exposure Skate brings together world-renowned skateboarding legends, rising stars, and young aspiring athletes to activate their mission of empowering women and girls in the skateboarding community through service, mindfulness, and compassion.
Self Help Graphics & Art Los Angeles, CA · Self Help Graphics & Art Los Angeles, CA
A cornerstone of the public art movement, Self Help Graphics & Art is home to one of the nation’s longest-running celebrations of Día de los Muertos, a pillar of Mexican, Indigenous, and Mexican American heritage that honors and commemorates ancestors and those who have passed. Each year, weeks of seasonal arts workshops culminate in a one-day festival complete with a procession, traditional Aztec dance, public altars, vendors, music, and more.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA · The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA
11 a.m.–2 p.m. PT The Huntington’s “This Land Is ...” initiative invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land, drawing from library, art, and botanical collections to spotlight relationships between place, U.S. history, and American identities. In this family-friendly event, visitors can participate in artmaking workshops with AMBOS: Art Made Between Opposite Sides, and join a national conversation at the We Hold These Truths interviewing booth.
Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Louisville, KY · Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Louisville, KY
Marking its thirtieth year in 2026, the Festival of Faiths brings spiritual and religious leaders, scholars, artists and creative thinkers together for two days of dialogue on pressing social issues. As the preeminent interfaith event in Louisville, Kentucky, the Festival of Faiths highlights the diversity of faith traditions, and their interconnections, in Louisville and beyond. The Festival of Faiths is produced by the Center for Interfaith Relations and is recognized nationally as a model for interfaith work.
Founded in 1934, the National Folk Festival is the longest-running multicultural celebration of the traditional arts in the United States. The flagship program of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, this traveling festival celebrates the artistic traditions of all Americans and honors the nation’s finest traditional artists. In residence in Jackson, Mississippi, from 2025 to 2027, “the National” features over 300 artists on six stages, nonstop music and dance, parades, a Mississippi folklife area, a family area, regional and international cuisine, and a crafts marketplace.
Still We Sing (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Ford Community & Performing Arts Center Dearborn, MI · Ford Community & Performing Arts Center Dearborn, MI
7–10 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Omar Offendum, Lubana Al Quntar, Rewa Zeinati. Presented in partnership with the Arab American National Museum.