In 1952, Autherine Lucy was admitted to the University of Alabama, but her admission was rescinded when authorities discovered she was not white. After three years of legal wrangling, the NAACP got a court order preventing the University from banning her based on race. During her first day of class, students rioted on the campus, and a mob of more than a thousand white men pelted the car in which she was taken to her classes. Death threats were made against her, and the University president's home was stoned. After the riots, the University suspended Lucy "for her own safety" and later expelled her on a technicality. After her expulsion was annulled by the University in 1988, Lucy re-enrolled and completed her M.S. in Library Science in 1992.

As publisher of the Tuscaloosa News, Buford Boone wrote an editorial chastising the University of Alabama and local residents for their reaction to Autherine Lucy's admission to the university in the mid-1950s. Angry letters to the paper poured in, as did threatening phone calls to Boone's residence, but he was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his calm, level-headed acceptance of desegregation.

The Weindorf Festival is a cultural German festival in which native Tuscaloosans and German immigrants celebrate Tuscaloosa's bond with Germany through the nearby Mercedes-Benz Automobile Plant and Tuscaloosa's sister City of Schorndorf. The celebration includes German alcoholic beverages, singing, dancing, and other Germanic arts.

Extensive archaeological investigation has shown that Moundville Archaeological Park was the political and ceremonial center of a regionally organized Mississippian culture chiefdom polity between the 11th and 16th centuries. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

The University of Alabama gifted a 30 foot-tall, 9,500-pound statue of the Roman goddess Minerva, which now stands at Manderson Landing park along the Black Warrior River.

The highest recorded temperature at the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport was 107 °F (42 °C) on July 29, 1952 and August 10, 2007, while the lowest recorded temperature was -1 °F (-18 °C) on January 21, 1985.