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Ruby Pictures Inc.

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

Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round - MLK Day Special Screening

Ilana Trachtman

Rick D'Avino

Barbara Dobkin

Pamela Murphy

Jeffrey Z. Slavin

Five Howard students sat down on the gilded horses of whites-only carousel the summer of 1960. When the white community near Glen Echo Amusement Park joined the Black students en masse and set up picket lines, an unprecedented collaboration was born. 

The pickets attracted Nazis, congressmen, and a press avalanche. Picketing together led to partying together and union organizers mentored student activists, ultimately producing ten 1961 Freedom Riders, including Stokely Carmichael, and 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 voiceover by noted actors Jeffrey Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Bob Balaban, Lee Grant, Peter Gallagher, Dominique Thorne, Alysia Reiner and Tracie Thoms.