AIN’T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND offers a rare intimate lens on one protest in the early Civil Rights Movement. Telling the story of one amusement park, one group of individuals, and one moment in time, the laser focus allows for deep understanding of the non-famous individuals whose efforts, sacrifices, and personal awakenings fueled the Civil Rights Movement.
At-Home Film Screening: May 30-June 4
Online Director Talk: June 4, 7:30 PM ET
Registration Fee: $18
The link to watch the film will be emailed to all registrants before the screening window.
Program fees will never be a barrier to participation in Haberman Institute programs. Please contact our Executive Director if you need financial assistance.
We extend a special thank you to Andrew R. Ammerman for sponsoring our Fall 2024 program lineup. He dedicates the semester’s learning in loving memory of Josephine and H. Max Ammerman and Stephen C. Ammerman.
Click to watch the trailer!
For almost 60 years, Glen Echo Amusement Park was the wholesome, beloved playground of white metropolitan Washington. Every summer, tens of thousands enjoyed its Crystal Pool, wooden rollercoaster, Spanish Ballroom, and Tunnel of Love. But the Black children living nearby could only gawk from the road.
In June of 1960, three shocking, unprecedented events happened at “idyllic” Glen Echo Amusement Park:
Howard University Students arrived up at the Park and sat down on the carousel.
White, middle-aged neighbors, largely Jewish, joined the protests.
The American Nazi Party showed up.
AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND is the forgotten story of how those three events shook metropolitan Washington, forced sides, changed lives, and ignited sparks that flew out across the Civil Rights Movement for years to come.
Using just-discovered archival footage, and focusing on the stories of six individuals, viewers are transported to those heady days when private businesses could choose their customers, and the walls between Black and white were so high that friendships were unimaginable.
Barring technical issues, the June 4 Director Talk will be posted on our Program Recording Archive.
llana Trachtman is an Emmy award-winning documentary director/producer. For over twenty-five years, she has created programs for numerous networks including PBS, HBO Family, ABC-TV, Showtime, Discovery, Lifetime, and the Sundance Channel.
llana believes that true stories, carefully told, have unique power to inspire compassion, action, and community-building. Her topics have ranged from the legacy of slavery in Latin America (Black in Latin America with Henry Louis Gates, PBS) to Gulf coast shrimpers (Our Heroes, Ourselves, Lifetime), glassblowing for at-risk youth (The Arts Advantage, ABC-TV) to transgender parents (The Pursuit, PBS.)
Other favorite prime-time directing credits include the independent feature Mariachi High and Texas Ranch House. llana supervised production on PBS' History Detectives and Sundance’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet.
Through her production company Ruby Pictures, Ilana made the feature documentary Praying with Lior which played theatrically in over 60 cities in the US and abroad. The film garnered 6 Audience Awards for Best Documentary, the Grand Prix at the International Disability Film Festival in Moscow, and was a critic's pick of the New York Times, New York Magazine, Washington Post, and Philadelphia Inquirer.
“This is an example of how the power of a story can bring people and communities together, even in the darkest of times. ...May this film continue to be screened in communities across the country and internationally.”