The Fight to Desegregate an Amusement Park in the Summer of 1960

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Fight to Desegregate an Amusement Park in the Summer of 1960"

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Episode Date: September 16, 2025
Main Guest: Ilana Trackman, director of Ain't No Back to Amerigo Round
Episode Theme: Exploring the little-told story of the 1960 campaign to desegregate Glen Echo Amusement Park in Maryland—one of the earliest and most significant large-scale integrated protests—through the lens of Trackman's new documentary.

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Overview

This episode dives deep into a pivotal, yet often overlooked, battle for civil rights: the effort to desegregate Glen Echo Amusement Park during the summer of 1960. Host Alison Stewart speaks with documentary director Ilana Trackman, whose film, Ain't No Back to Amerigo Round, brings to light the cross-racial activism that made the protest possible, the atmosphere of mid-century Jim Crow Maryland, and the enduring legacies—both painful and inspiring—within the local community.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Connections and the Erasure of History

• Ilana Trackman's Childhood Memories
  Trackman recounts visiting Glen Echo regularly as a child, never questioning its past. Only years later, after a chance conversation with a park ranger, did she learn of the park's segregated history (02:44).

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 03:23):
    “I had to just get over myself about the fact that it had been segregated, because that hadn’t occurred to me... What I had been nostalgic for was this glory, fun place of accessibility. And it was actually the exact opposite for a whole group of people.”

• Historical Omission
  Discusses why the park’s painful history was largely omitted from its public narrative:

  • The National Park Service only installed a commemorative plaque in 2008 (04:43).
  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 04:43):
    "In 2008 is when they finally put up a plaque to the five protesters who conducted the first sit-in... but of course, it happened in 1960."

2. Cultural Memory and Reckoning

• Personal and Community Reflection
  Both Trackman and listeners like Donna (from Long Island, 08:12) describe growing up with cherished memories of the park, unaware of its segregated nature.
  • Quote (Caller Donna, 08:17):
    “This was a major part of my childhood. So thank you.”
  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 08:54):
    “It was overwhelming to me because I had thought it was just me being so stupid in my childhood, looking at these pictures... but then, you know, I talked to people who grew up and actually went there, who also didn’t notice.”

3. Segregation Laws and the Landscape of 1960 Maryland

• De Facto and De Jure Segregation
  Ilana Trackman outlines how segregation functioned in Maryland and D.C.:
  • Black customers could buy in department stores but not try on clothes (10:38).
  • No public accommodation laws—businesses could refuse customers based on race.
  • The Washington NFL team was the last in the league to integrate.

4. Alliances Across Race and Religion

• The Bannockburn Community
  The white suburban activists were not typical; they were Jewish New Dealers and labor organizers, largely excluded from D.C. by restrictive housing covenants and thus built a cooperative, progressive community (12:50).

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 12:50):
    "They were not your typical white suburbanites. They were people who had chosen to live in this community called Bannockburn, which was really founded on utopian ideals..."

• Bannockburn and Howard Students Joining Forces
  When Howard students (the Nonviolent Action Group—NAG) began picketing Glen Echo, Bannockburn residents quickly joined, bringing support and resources (14:29).

5. The Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) and Protest Tactics

• Origins of NAG
  Howard University students, inspired by Greensboro, formed NAG to pressure establishments through nonviolent direct action. After integrating lunch counters in Arlington, GLen Echo became their next target (15:16).

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 16:10):
    “NAG was their acronym because they said they were going to NAG the establishment.”

• Targeting Glen Echo
  The choice was strategic—Glen Echo’s slogan "come one, come all" was a visible contradiction to its exclusionary practice.

6. Resistance and Violence

• Opposition from White Residents
  Callers and Trackman recall violent incidents, such as a protester being hit with a brick (18:22).

  • Quote (Caller Virginia, 18:22):
    “My roommate was very active... a woman threw a brick at her. She almost lost her eye... The hatefulness of the people at Glen Echo that didn’t want the place integrated just always stuck with me.”

• Lingering Pain
  Trackman notes how, even post-integration, many Black families felt unable to return to the park for years (19:27).

7. Intergroup Tensions and Cooperation

• Different Backgrounds, United Purpose
  Bannockburn and NAG had generational and tactical differences—union-trained older whites vs. young, church-recruiting Black students—yet coordinated for greater effect (20:12).

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 20:45):
    “There was definitely bumps. But I do think one of the things that made the protest so successful is that they really recognized and appreciated each other’s strengths and played to their strengths.”

• National Attention
  Integrated picket lines were so unusual at the time that they drew major headlines:

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 21:45):
    “The Washington Post ran a headline that said, ‘Whites join Negroes to protest Glen Echo Park Segregation.’”

8. Legacy and Broader Impact

• Family-Owned Amusement Parks
  After integration, the park's attendance declined, mostly due to industry-wide changes (Disney opening, rise of large theme parks, air travel) rather than solely “white flight” (23:03).

• Everyday People Making Change
  Trackman concludes that local action by non-famous individuals was crucial in civil rights progress:

  • Quote (Ilana Trackman, 23:59):
    “I think that it’s such a disservice to us that we don’t learn about the thousands of people who just acted locally. They didn’t go to the bridge at Selma. They just stood up at their local lunch counter, amusement park, library, movie theater. And when we learn about those people... we then see our own capacity for being able to act.”

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On nostalgia and reckoning:
  “What I had been nostalgic for was this glory, fun place of accessibility. And it was actually the exact opposite for a whole group of people.”
  — Ilana Trackman (03:23)

• On ignored history:
  "In 2008 is when they finally put up a plaque to the five protesters who conducted the first sit-in... but of course, it happened in 1960."
  — Ilana Trackman (04:43)

• On Bannockburn’s activism:
  “They bought a golf course cooperatively and developed it... that always had a cooperative nursery school, cooperative swimming pool, cooperative clubhouse.”
  — Ilana Trackman (12:50)

• On intergenerational protest tactics:
  “Bannockburn people had labor union training. The NAG students were going into black churches in D.C. in order to recruit people... Bannockburn had connections in upper echelons of the federal government.”
  — Ilana Trackman (20:45)

• On learning from local actors:
  “We don’t learn about the thousands of people who just acted locally... when we learn about those people, we then see our own capacity for being able to act.”
  — Ilana Trackman (23:59)

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Memorable Moments & Segments (Timestamps)

• [06:19] — Langston Hughes reads “Merry Go Round” (archival voice clip), inspiring the documentary’s title.
• [08:12] / [08:17] — Caller Donna shares her childhood memories of Glen Echo, never realizing its segregated past.
• [12:25] — Caller Lucy reflects on her grandfather, Bishop Daniel Corrigan, a key clergy activist.
• [16:42] — Clip from Helen Wilson, NAG member, describing her early awareness of race and segregation.
• [18:22] — Caller Virginia details a violent incident against a protester, highlighting the risks of activism.
• [23:00] — Caller Quincy recounts swimming at Glen Echo and learning later about its closing and the role of race.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a riveting, nuanced exploration of how everyday people—across races, backgrounds, and generations—came together (and sometimes clashed) in the fight to desegregate Glen Echo Amusement Park. Ilana Trackman’s documentary, underscored by community stories and listener calls, reveals the complex local ground on which sweeping national changes were built. Her work, and the stories told, challenge all listeners to recognize both the pain of historical omissions and the power we each have to enact change—locally, and beyond.

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Transcript

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. In the summer of 1960, a group of white, primarily Jewish suburban residents joined a group of black students from Howard University in a demonstration to desegregate Glen Echo Amusement park in Maryland, becoming one of the earliest large scale integrated protests apart from the civil rights. Excuse me, apart from the civil Rights movement. Now their efforts are the subject of a documentary. It's called Ain't no Back to Amerigo Round. Featuring never before seen footage, the film revisits the atmosphere of Jim Crow, M.D. it also includes current testimonies of the people who lived in that time, many of whom who became young activists involved in sit ins and picketing in the face of American Nazis who were targeting them. A review in the Washington Post states, in some ways, Ain't no Back to Amerigo round plays like a here's what really happened version of John Waters Hairspray, where the sweetly subversive comedy delivers its barbed, wrapped in cotton candy. The grimmer realities and dangerous stakes come into sharper focus here. Ain't no Back to America Round opens at the IFC center tomorrow, Wednesday night and will run until Monday, September 22nd. The film's director, Ilana Trackman, joins me now to discuss. She also directed the 22nd 2016 PBS documentary the Pursuit 50 Years in the Fight for LGBT Rights. Thank you for being with us.

[Ilana Trackman]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

Listeners, we'd like to get you in on this conversation. Have you ever been to Glen Echo national park in Maryland? Or do you remember the amusement park? It was there before 1968. What did you learn about the demonstration in the park? Or perhaps you participated in protest to end desegregation? Give us a call. Share your story get 2124-3396-9221-2433-WNYC. We want to hear about your participation in any protest to end segregation or if you have any relation to Glen Echo Park. When did you first hear about the park?

[Ilana Trackman]

I don't even Remember when I first heard about the park? Because I lived 20 minutes away growing up, so my family went all the time. And it wasn't. It wasn't an amusement park anymore. It had become a National park in 1971. And it was like a magical place because it kept so much of the infrastructure of the amusement park. And at the same time, it had turned into an arts center. So you could see roller coaster tracks, and the shooting gallery was still there, the crystal pool sign and the carousel was still running. And the whole thing was covered in like a 1920s art deco font. And it just was an incredibly evocative, magical place for me.

[Alison Stewart]

When did you learn about the history of Glen Echo Park?

[Ilana Trackman]

Yeah, so that's, that's, that's the million dollar question. The park always had signs about its celebrated past. It was like a sort of beloved icon of Washingtonia. But it wasn't until 20 years after I moved away that I brought my then fiance to the park because I wanted him to see it. And we could consider it as a wedding venue because I loved it so much. And we ran into a park ranger who told us the story of how the park became integrated. And at first I had to just get over myself about the fact that it had been segregated, because that hadn't occurred to me. That wasn't part of any of the public telling of the stories of the park. And that was an enormous, enormous reckoning, because what I had been nostalgic for was this glory, fun place of accessibility. And it was actually the exact opposite for a whole group of people. It was a place of exclusion and pain and rejection and seeming inferiority. And so that those two things existed and that I hadn't known it is really what motivated me to get started working on the movie.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

It's so interesting.

[Alison Stewart]

Why do you think it wasn't in the telling of the park's story now.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

That you've made this movie?

[Ilana Trackman]

I can't answer that. I think you'd have to ask the National park service. In 2008 is when they finally put up a plaque to the five protesters who conducted the first sit in actually on the carousel and were arrested. And their arrest went to the Supreme Court. And so they put a plaque in 2008, but of course, it happened in 1960.

[Alison Stewart]

So what questions did you want answered?

[Ilana Trackman]

Well, I wanted to understand. I mean, first I wanted to just peel back the layers on all of my own narrative about what I imagined that Washington was like. And then I wanted to understand how it was that I hadn't known the story, but then knowing that, learning the story, how it was that these two groups of people who were had no experience of the other. I mean, we say that the world is segregated now, and it is. But in that time, it was completely reasonable for an educated person, black or white, to spend their entire life without having a meaningful conversation with the other. And so for Howard students, it was a watershed. And for the Bannockburn, that's the white community that pitched in also. They just there weren't friendships, there weren't relationships. And so how those two groups of people worked together.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. My mom grew up in Washington, D.C. so I know it well. Yeah, I know the history quite well.

[Alison Stewart]

The inspiration for the title comes from.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

A Langston Hughes poem which is heard in the documentary. Let's take a quick listen to that.

[Langston Hughes (voice clip)]

Where is the Jim Crow section on this Merry go round? Mr. Because 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 to a merry go round. Where's a horse for a kid that's black?

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

That poem is from 1942. But why did that seem like the right place to pick the title for your documentary, Ain't no Going Back to the Merry Go Round.

[Ilana Trackman]

Why did it seem like the right title?

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Ilana Trackman]

Well, I mean, I think it points out all of it. It points out the idiocy of Jim Crow and, you know, and nowhere is that more true than at an amusement park on a carousel, you know, and when you're talking about, like, children's entertainment, it just, you know, it just it landed there was I actually tried for it not to be the title because it's so long, you know. And if you like look at a Netflix menu, like, you know, it's a lot bigger than the thumbnail and nothing is really usually more than two words, but it was right. And everything else I came up with didn't have the same wasn't nearly as provocative or important.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

It's so important. Ain't no Back to America round like so where's the back?

[Ilana Trackman]

Right, right, right. And what you just heard is Langston reading it himself. And that always like I mean, still like moves me, you know, to this day, hearing his voice.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Let's take a call. This is Donna, who is calling in from North Belmore, Long Island.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi, Donna, thank you for making the.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Time to call all of it.

[Caller Donna]

Oh, for this wonderful segment, I Grew up in. In Maryland. And almost every Sunday my father took us to Glen Echo Amusement park. This was the 50s. I had absolutely no idea. Never remember anything as a child. Never remember my parents aren't alive. I would have loved to ask them that. And I really look forward to seeing this movie. This was a major part of my childhood. So thank you.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Thank you so much for calling in. Did you find that when you talked to people about the park.

[Ilana Trackman]

Absolutely. I mean, it was sort of. It was overwhelming to me because I had thought it was just me being so stupid in my childhood, looking at these pictures, loving these pictures and just not noticing that I was only looking at pictures of white people. But then, you know, I talked to people who grew up and actually went there, who also didn't notice. And, you know, and they were children or they were adults. But it's so interesting how that wasn't part of the consciousness. And to this day, you know, I think that for white people who grew up in Washington, it remains this, like Donna said, like this beloved memory of childhood. And, you know, I know people whose grandparents got engaged on the Ferris wheel. I mean, it was like that kind of a place. You know, Jimmy Dorsey used to perform there. Just, you know, thousands and thousands of people would come every weekend. But it turns out only fewer white.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

A documentary tells the story of a civil rights demonstration to desegregate an amusement park led by black college students and white suburbanites. The director, Alana Trackman, is my guest. We're talking about her film Ain't no Back to Americo Round, which will be playing at the IFC center starting tomorrow through Monday, September 22nd. Listeners, we'd like to get you in on the conversation. Have you ever been to Glen Eckhart national park in Maryland? Do you remember it? Do you remember it as an amusement park? When did you learn about the demonstration to integrate the park? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC to give us a sense of what, like, what the segregation laws were like at the time. What were they like?

[Ilana Trackman]

Right. So Maryland was absolutely the south below the Mason Dixon line, and so was Virginia. Obviously, Washington, D.C. was legally int. Integrated, de facto segregated in Maryland. You could, if you were a person of color, you could go into a department store and buy something, but you couldn't try it on because the idea was that if you were a person of color or somebody white wanted to buy something, and there was a possibility that a person of color had tried it on they wouldn't want to buy it. The Washington then called Redskins were the last team in the NFL to integrate, which is just so stunning to me. And the laws were in Maryland and Virginia where they didn't have public accommodation laws. So what that meant was if you owned a business, you could choose your customers.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Let's talk to Lucy online too. She's calling from Hastings on Hudson. Hey Lucy, thank you so much for calling.

[Caller Lucy]

Well, thank you for, for having this segment. It just really helps me remember my grandfather, the Bishop Daniel Corrigan, who was one of the activist who started this desegregation. He was a, he had a church in Baltimore and he just did so many extraordinary things. Kind of back when religious figures were, you know, social justice warriors. And he truly was. And this was just one of actually many things that he did to change the world for so many people, including women in the Episcopal Church. He ordained women in the Episcopal Church. And then I later got to work with John Waters briefly and so we.

[Caller Quincy]

Got to talk about that.

[Caller Lucy]

That was fun because I remember hairspray just being, didn't really address it, but just being proud that my grandfather had been just such a strong force in this movement and always taught me that just a few people can change a lot of things.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much for taking your call. When did white suburbanites become interested in. In this particular case?

[Ilana Trackman]

Yeah, well, I think it's really important to define who these white suburbanites were. They were not your typical white suburbanites. They were people who had chosen to live in this community called Bannockburn, which was really founded on utopian ideals. And originally it was founded because there were many Jewish labor organizers and civil servants who had come to Washington in order to work in the New Deal administration coming from New York. And when they got there, they discovered that there were housing covenants that restricted them from buying homes in Washington D.C. and some parts of Maryland. And so as a response, they bought a golf course cooperatively and developed it into a neighborhood that always had a cooperative nursery school, cooperative swimming pool, cooperative clubhouse. And people who joined them by, you know, by 1960, it was, it was interfaith. Were also like minded people who are connected to the labor movements. So this community had been boycotting Glen Echo Amusement park, which was so close that they could hear people screaming from the carousel. They'd been boycotting it for years. And in the Washington post over the 50s, you see letters from them just decrying what they call this like blight on Washington, that this amusement park is segregated. So for them, as soon as they heard that the Howard students were showing up, it was like a no brainer to go across the street and meet them. And meet them with lemonade and cookies and access to bathrooms.

[Alison Stewart]

And after the break, we'll discover how the Howard students and these people got together to make a difference. Stay with us. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is director Ilana Trackman. We're talking about her documentary Ain't no Back to Amerigo Round. It's gonna be playing at the IFC center starting tomorrow. And we just found out it was extended until September 25th. So we're talking about this amusement park. And you said Howard students got involved and they called themselves nag. Please explain to us who NAG is.

[Ilana Trackman]

NAG is the nonviolent action group. And NAG was their acronym because they said they were going to NAG the establishment. It was a small group of Howard students, a handful. It was led by a man named Lawrence Henry, who was a divinity student. He was old at 25. And the rest of the Howard students were freshmen. So they were 18 and 19 year olds. And it was probably about eight of them initially who had first. They had been inspired by Greensboro. And so they had first targeted the lunch counters in Arlington, Virginia, and had incredible success within two weeks. Because they were really savvy about it. They chose lunch counters that had out that were basically outposts of stores in the north. And so they knew that economically it would be really bad if there were sympathy pickets up north like Woolworths. So all of Arlington actually agreed to desegregate within two weeks. And then they were like, amazing. What are we gonn next? You know? And thinking it was all going to be just that simple. And Glen Echo was such a conspicuous target. I mean, the jingle was on the air all the time. You would be hard pressed to find anybody who is over 70 and who can't sing it actually who grew up in Washington. And their ad said come one, come all. And everybody knew it was a lie. So that's where they went next.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Let's listen to a clip. This is NAG member Helen Wilson talking about the experience in her life that drove her to become involved with the civil rights movement.

[NAG member Helen Wilson (voice clip)]

I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and I went to a school that was all white. In our sixth grade, a black girl came into the school. Shortly after that, a second black girl came. And I could see that nobody was talking to them. And I remember going out of My way to make friends with her. I knew how I would have felt if I was in a school where everybody was different from where I was.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

So how did the black students react to people like Helen Wilson who wanted to help?

[Ilana Trackman]

Colleen Wilson was kind of an unusual case because she. She's a very unusual case. She had in Buffalo, befriended Bayard Rustin, and he was close to her and her husband, who was a labor organizer. So as a newlywed, they moved to Washington, and Bayard introduced her to Tom Khan. Tom Khan was at Howard, and that is how she was connected to nag. So she wasn't from. She wasn't from Bannockburn.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Oh, she wasn't. I'm so sorry. Let's take another call. Virginia is calling from East Orange, New Jersey. Hey, Virginia.

[Caller Virginia]

Hi.

[Ilana Trackman]

Hi.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

You're on the air.

[Caller Virginia]

Oh, well, I told your. Your person that my roommate. I lived in New York City at the time and was working. And my roommate was very active in the civil rights movement. She was white, and she was Equin Echo when they were integrating it, and a woman threw a brick at her. She almost lost her eye, I think, as a result of that. And it was just the hatefulness of the people at Glen Echo that didn't want the place integrated. Just always stuck with me. And even though after I left New York, I lived in the Maryland, you know, the area, the Delmarva area, I never went near Glen Echo because I had such a horrible distaste for the people around there. That's all.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Virginia, thank you so much for sharing. Did you want to weigh in on that?

[Ilana Trackman]

Yeah, I would love to actually know your roommate's name, because I've talked to, at this point, 150 people or so who were there. So I'd be interested if it's someone that I had spoken to. I have met along the way, many people, African American people, who still refuse to go into Glen Echo, even though it closed in 1968 and it's now obviously fully integrated national park. And many of the park rangers are African American. And they have told me about how it was a real process for their families to come around to where they were working.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

I'm curious if there was any sort of disagreement in the. In the protesters, the way they went about things.

[Ilana Trackman]

That's a great question. It was not Kumbaya. It was not Kumbaya. And actually, I hope that that's clear from the film. You know, anytime you have any groups of people, but here you have people who have completely different life experiences, expectations and tactics. And for the most part, Bannockburn were people were 20, 25 years older than the Howard students. They had children at home. The Howard students did not. And the Bannockburn people had labor union training.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

That's right.

[Ilana Trackman]

So, you know, that's a very particular approach. But I. And there was. There was definitely bumps. But I do think that one of the things that reasons that the protest was so successful is that they really recognized and appreciated each other's strengths and played to their strengths. So, for example, the NAG students were going into the black churches in D.C. in order to recruit people to come to the picket line line. Bannockburn had connections in upper echelons of the federal government so they could bring congressmen to the picket line. So, you know, they were all thinking about their shared goal and there was nothing better than the optics. Because in Washington, D.C. having an integrated picket line was so unusual and one with congressmen that the Washington Post ran a headline that said, whites join Negroes to protest Glen Echo Park Segregation. I mean, that was a headline, Whites join Negroes. So, yeah, it wasn't simple, but ultimately was successful because they got past themselves.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Let's talk to Quincy from West Orange. Hi, Quincy, thanks for calling all of it.

[Caller Virginia]

Hi.

[Caller Quincy]

So I grew up in the D.C. area and I took swimming lessons in the pool at Glen Echo Amusement park, which was kind of amazing. It was an amazing pool with a huge fountain.

[Ilana Trackman]

And.

[Caller Quincy]

And I don't remember it was like 65 or 66 if it was integrated or not then. But I mean, as a kid I wouldn't have noticed one way or the other.

[Ilana Trackman]

But.

[Caller Quincy]

I did ask my mother years later what happened, because it was such a fabulous amusement park and, you know, we used to go there for swimming and also for amusement. And she said that, you know, people, they started to integrate it and bus in African Americans and white people didn't like it and it basically went out of business except for the carousel. And I was just kind of astounded. Like, I don't know how I missed that.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Let me follow you up on that. Is that what happened?

[Ilana Trackman]

I think that's part of the story, but it's not the whole story. The park didn't close until 1968, and it was partially due to just declining numbers of people coming. But if you look at family owned amusement parks across the United States, I think there's some number, like 89% or something of them closed between 1960 and 1972 because Disney World opened and Six Flags and air travel became expensive and just family owned amusement parks. Were closing. But I love your story of learning to swim in the crystal pool that I, when I was a child, it was just, it was there, but it was empty. It was just concrete. But 3,000 people could swim in crystal pool. And it had beaches.

[Alison Stewart]

Wow. What do you want people to learn from this film in their last minute?

[Ilana Trackman]

I think that when we learn about the civil rights movement, we learn about the giants. And it's hard to name more than like four or five people for the average person who is active. But I think that it's such a disservice to us that we don't learn about the thousands of people who just acted locally. They didn't go to the bridge at Selma. They just stood up at their local lunch counter, amusement park, library, movie theater. And when we learn about those people, which I hope a viewer does when they see the film, and we then see our own capacity for being able to act. And I'm just so excited for New York audiences to get to see the film. And I'm gonna be there actually Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday and Sunday.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

We love it.

[Alison Stewart]

Director Alana Truckman.

[Radio Host/Interviewer]

Her new film is called Ain't no.

[Alison Stewart]

Back to a Merry Go Round, which opens at the IFC center tomorrow. Thanks for coming in.

[Ilana Trackman]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

There's more, all of it tomorrow. I'm Alison Stewart. I'll meet you back here.

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