Carmel Jewish Film Festival: Ain't No Back To A Merry Go Round

Five Howard students sat down on the gilded horses of a whites-only carousel at Glen Echo Amusement Park (MD) in 1960. The white community nearby, mostly middle age and mostly Jewish, joined the Black students en masse and set up picket lines--an unprecedented collaboration was born. Then the American Nazi party showed up.

Picketing together led to partying together. 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.