Ain't No Back To a Merry-Go-Round

In the summer of 1960 five Howard University students sat down on the gilded horses at the carousel in the whites-only Glen Echo Amusement Park in Maryland, not far from the nation’s capital. The news reports led the nearby white, largely Jewish community to join the Black students en masse and help set up picket lines, and an unprecedented collaboration was born. The picketing attracted Nazis, Congressman, and a press avalanche. Picketing together led to partying together and union organizers mentored student activists. From these protests emerged ten 1961 Freedom Riders, including Stokely Carmichael, along with a Supreme Court case. With never-before seen footage and immersive storytelling by Emmy-award winning director Ilana Trachtman, four living protesters rescue this untold story, revealing the price, and the power, of heeding the impulse to activism. Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round includes voiceovers by noted actors Jeffrey Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Bob Balaban, Lee Grant, Peter Gallagher, Dominique Thorne, Alysia Reiner and Tracie Thoms.

Guest: Barry Wolfe, a participant in the picket line