Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round – Director Ilana Trachtman

Director Ilana Trachtman illuminating documentary 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 five 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 1961 Freedom 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 Thoms.

 

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Merry-Go-Round 
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can’t sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There’s a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we’re put in the back —
But there ain’t no back on a merry-go-round
Where’s the horse For a kid that’s Black?
– Langston Hughes –

 

About the filmmaker – Ilana Trachtman (Producer/ Director) has made Emmy award-winning nonfiction programs for over thirty years. For PBS, HBO Family, ABC-TV, Showtime, Lifetime, Discovery, A&E, and the Sundance channel she has explored worlds such as the legacy of slavery in Latin America, activism among Gulf coast shrimpers, glassblowing with at- risk youth, and transgender parents. Favorite prime-time directing credits for PBS include the independent feature Mariachi High (Imagen Award Nomination) Black in Latin America hosted by Henry Louis Gates; and Texas Ranch House. Ilana was a supervising producer on PBS’ History Detectives and the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet. Ilana began her career in the documentary unit of PBS’s Reading Rainbow. Ilana’s independent feature documentary Praying with Lior played theatrically in over 60 cities in the US and abroad. The film garnered six Audience Awards for Best Documentary, the Grand Prix at the International Disability Film Festival, and was a critic’s pick of the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Post. Ilana produced and directed The Pursuit: 50 Years in the Fight for LGBT Rights for WHYY, which won the Mid-Atlantic Emmy for Best Documentary. Most recently, she co-produced Stand Up and Shout: Songs from a Philly High School for HBO. 

Reviews:

“This film proves to be an endearing foray into the racial disparities of the 1960s and gives you a beautiful, yet dark, glimpse into what that time was like for people of color.” – Richard Schertzer, Battle Royale With Cheese

“Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round is a film that informs with entertaining creativity.” – Karren LaLonde Alenier, culturevulture.net