Former Congressman Jim Davis says a lot of people don’t know about the sit-ins in 1960 that ended racial segregation in Tampa.
They happened at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter on Franklin Street downtown. About 40 students from the city’s two Black high schools, Middleton and Blake, staged the peaceful demonstrations, answering a call from civil rights leader Rev. A. Leon Lowry, pastor of Beulah Baptist Church.
Thanks to a $500,000 fundraising effort led by prominent community leaders including Davis, the story of those sit-ins, Tampa playwright and USF faculty member Mark E. Leib’s “When the Righteous Triumph,” returns to the stage in March for a limited run at downtown Tampa's Straz Center for the Performing Arts Jaeb Theatre. The new production is two years to the month after the play debuted at Stageworks Theatre in the Channel District's Grand Central at Kennedy. The March 6th through 9th run includes five shows, with three evening performances and two matinees. Because of demand, matinees have been added on March 15th and 16th. The run also includes special performances for high school students from across the Tampa Bay area.
Davis, Lowry’s widow Shirley Lowry, and Stageworks Theatre Producing Artistic Director Karla Hartley, director of both the 2023 and 2025 productions, recently discussed the sit-ins and the play during a monthly online forum run by the Sunshine State Unity Network, a nonprofit group led by former state representatives Jennifer Webb and Kurt Kelly and Miami area community leader Lisa Lorenzo.
“The story, we believe – based on some of the historians working with us – was one of the most successful sit-ins in the entire South because it was peaceful, because it was impactful and relatively expedient,” Davis says during the discussion. “And the thing that struck me about the play was that it was remarkably unifying and inspiring.”
That’s a valuable point for contemporary audiences, he says.
“In these times, we need a unifying, uplifting message,’’ says Davis. “It’s a very important chapter in Black history in Florida and it’s a story that’s largely been untold.’’
Shirley Lowry says it’s a story of courageous students from two different high schools who “were brave enough to go into a Woolworth and have the audacity to ask for a drink or cup of coffee.”
“My husband, Dr. A. Leon Lowry, was the person that prepared the students to do that,” she says. “It was something that needed to be done.”
It’s gratifying to Davis that teachers from about 40 public and private schools in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties are sending students to see matinee performances of the play at sharply reduced prices. Schools wanted to send many more but only 2,000 could be accommodated, Davis says. He says Pinellas County Schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick wanted to send 6,000 students.
“What he said was, look, we teach as part of American history the history of civil rights in the South and in the country, but we now have a local story to tie this into,’’ Davis says.
The community effort to restage the play has also included former Tampa Mayor and Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, former mayors Dick Greco and Pam Iorio, retired Judge E.J. Salcines, and former state CFO and candidate for governor Alex Sink, Davis says. Former State Senator Arthenia Joyner, who took part in the sit-ins as a 17-year-old Middleton student, has also been part of the grassroots campaign. In an interview last year, she recalled the walk from St. Paul A.M.E. Church to Woolworth’s on February 29th, 1960.
“As we got closer there were some people on the sidewalk watching us that didn’t look too happy, but we had been told to just walk on, don’t make eye contact, just go in,” she said.
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"When the Righteous Triumph" depicts Tampa's civil rights lunch counter sit-ins.Key figures in the play are Lowry, Tampa NAACP Youth Leader Clarence Fort, who
organized the sit-ins, and two white men, Mayor Julian Lane and prominent lawyer Cody Fowler, Davis’ grandfather.
Lowry had met with Lane and told him his plans. Davis describes Lane as “an unsung hero.”
“Julian Lane said we’re going to protect the students,” he says. “We’re going to do this peacefully. He and Reverend Lowry shook hands.’’
Davis says his grandfather, who appealed to merchants around town to integrate, “did what any good lawyer does...solve problems and bring people together.” He says Rev. Lowry had “sort of this James Earl Jones countenance about him.”
“He was a servant leader, and he really propounds his faith and conviction in this play in a way that I found compelling,” he says.
"When the Righteous Triumph” returns to the Jaeb Theatre for 7:30 p.m. performances on March 6th, 7th, and 8th and 2 p.m. matinee performances on March 8th and 9th. WEDU is also recording the play for later broadcast, making a separate documentary about the sit-ins, and creating instructional material, Davis says.
For information and tickets, go to stageworkstheatre.org or Straz Center When the Righteous Triumph