Books
S P O T L I G H T
Book Review: ‘Round & Round Together,’ by Amy Nathan
For this reason, America owes a
debt of gratitude to Amy Nathan for
writing “Round & Round Together,”
a welcome reminder of the ten-year
struggle to integrate Baltimore’s
Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. It was
whites-only from its opening in 1894
right up until Sharon Langley became
the first black child allowed on a ride
there on Aug. 28, 1963, the very same
day that Dr. King delivered his
prophetic “I Have a Dream” speech.
The title of “Round & Round
Together” was inspired by the fact
that it was the park’s merry-go-round
that little Sharon rode that fateful
afternoon. In the book, the author
seamlessly interweaves eyewitness
By Kam Williams
Special To The Skanner News
“About four months before the
March on Washington, Dr. Martin
Luther King was arrested during
demonstrations in Birmingham,
Alabama. While in jail, he wrote a
letter in which he explained why he
protested…
‘When you suddenly find your
tongue twisted and your speech
stammering as you seek to explain
to your six year-old daughter why
she can’t go to the amusement
park that has just been advertised
on television, and see tears welling
up in her little eyes when she is
told that Funtown is closed to col-
ored children, and see the
depressing clouds of inferiority
begin to form in her mental sky…
then you will understand why we
find it difficult to wait.’
This book tells the tale of the
nearly decade-long struggle to lib-
erate [Gwynn Oak’s] once whites-
only merry-go-round, weaving its
story into that of the civil rights move-
ment as a whole.”
— Excerpted from Chapter One (pgs.
9 & 12)
O
ne of my earliest childhood memo-
ries from back in the Fifties was
asking my mother if the family
could go to Palisades Amusement Park right
after watching a TV commercial featuring
kids enjoying its rides and swimming pool.
My hopes were dashed when she patiently
explained that we couldn’t because colored
people weren’t allowed in.
Who knows whether a kid ever fully
recovers from having it ingrained in your
brain at such a tender age that you’re a sec-
ond-class citizen? And yet, just such a sce-
nario ostensibly played out in millions of
other African-American homes back then,
even that of Dr. Martin Luther King, who
specifically referred to his frustration with
precisely the same predicament in his his-
toric Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
America owes a
debt of gratitude to
Amy Nathan for
writing “Round &
Round Together,” a
welcome reminder of
the ten-year struggle
to integrate Baltimore’s
Gwynn Oak
Amusement Park
accounts of the long effort to desegregate
Gwynn Oak with descriptions of what was
simultaneously transpiring elsewhere
around the country in the Civil Rights
Movement.
The text arrives amply augmented by
dozens of archival photos taken at Gwynn
Oak, many of which show demonstrators
being carted away by cops for trying to
cross its strictly-enforced color line. It also
includes a number of iconic images already
emblazoned on the nation’s consciousness:
of the March on Washington, of dogs being
set loose on picketers in Birmingham, Ala.,
of a firebombed Freedom Riders’ bus, and
of Rosa Parks being arrested for refusing to
sit on the back of the bus.
A profoundly moving tribute to the intrep-
id unsung heroes who risked their lives to
help bring an end to Baltimore’s Jim Crow
Era.
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Page 8 The Seattle Skanner February 1, 2012