Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round: Screening and Director Q&A

October 15th, 2026 - 6:00pm–8:30pm

Free; advance registration is not required, but encouraged via this online form.

Donations in support of the program are welcome and may be made at the Admission Desk on the day of the event.

 

Join Director Ilana Trachtman for a screening of her award-winning film AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND, followed by a Q&A. A free kosher reception will conclude the program.

AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND is the untold story of the first organized interracial civil rights protest in U.S. history. When 5 Howard University students sat on a Maryland carousel in 1960, the arrests made headlines. When the white community near Glen Echo Amusement Park joined the Black students in picketing, an extraordinary history-making partnership was born. The pickets attracted Nazis, Congressman, and a press avalanche. Picketing together over the sweltering summer led to partying together, and union organizers mentored student activists. Ten 1961Freedom Riders, including Stokely Carmichael, were incubated on the Glen Echo picket line, and the carousel arrests were challenged in the Supreme Court case. With never-before seen footage, and immersive storytelling by Emmy-award winning director Ilana Trachtman (Praying with Lior, Black in Latin America, The Pursuit), four living protesters rescue this forgotten history, 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 Thom.