Decades-old, newly restored Smithsonian carousel reopens -- to children's delight

Culture Decades-old, newly restored Smithsonian carousel reopens — to children's delight April 24, 202610:58 AM ET Elizabeth Blair Denay Wilkerson and her son Cairo, 2, ride the newly restored Smithsonian National Carousel on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Valerie Plesch for NPR hide caption toggle caption Valerie Plesch for NPR The Smithsonian Institution's carousel is back open for business Friday after being closed for nearly three years for restoration and refurbishments. Brightly painted ponies have been going round and round, delighting children, for centuries. But the joys they bring haven't always been accessible to everyone. The ribbon-cutting at the Smithsonian National Carousel nodded to this fact. Baltimore County police officers lift a white demonstrator into a patrol wagon on July 4, 1963. The man was arrested after he and some 400 other demonstrators protested the whites-only policy of Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in suburban Woodlawn, Md. Other demonstrators who had been arrested and escorted from the park sit in the background. William A. Smith/AP hide caption toggle caption William A. Smith/AP The first to ride the reopened carousel was a group of African American adults who arrived from Baltimore. In the 1960s, when many of them were kids, they were among the first to desegregate the carousel when it was located at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park outside of Baltimore. Sponsor Message "My family, we used to go there all the time once they let us in," said Janice Chance, who was 13 when she first rode the carousel in 1966. Chance's son was a Marine who died in Afghanistan in 2008. She said to have the carousel back on the National Mall means a lot to her and the many others who fought for "the freedoms of this country." "We are together, we're having fun, but we remember the struggle and how we got here," said Chance. Desegregating Gwynn Oak Amusement Park took several years of protests by Black and white activists: It was finally in...