Other cities in the South had confronted such lunch-counter sit-ins with arrests and brutality. But things turned out differently in Tampa, thanks to a biracial committee led by a white mayor, Julian Lane; a Black religious leader and president of the Florida NAACP, Rev. A. Leon Lowry; and a prominent white attorney known for defending Black clients, Cody Fowler.
Mayor Lane, using what he called the “Tampa Technique,” ordered police to protect the demonstrators rather than arrest them, and the committee arranged negotiations between Black leaders and white business owners that ushered in a peaceful shift toward desegregation throughout the city.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, the City of Tampa will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the sit-in during a 10 a.m. ceremony outside that former Woolworth on the corner of N Franklin and E Polk Streets.
Playwright Mark E. Leib, a Tampa native, had not heard about the sit-ins until reading a chapter in “From Saloons to Steakhouses” by Andy Huse, historian and curator for Florida Studies at the University of South Florida Tampa Library.
Stageworks Producing Artistic Director Karla Hartley, a third-generation Tampeña herself, didn’t know about them either until Leib approached her about commissioning a play on the subject. And when former U.S. Congressman Jim Davis saw Leib’s play at Stageworks in 2023, he decided it deserved a wider audience.
“I knew the story from my father,” says Davis, whose grandfather was Cody Fowler. “But to see it brought to life in such a compelling fashion was inspiring. My cousin, who’s very conservative politically, loved it, too.”
Feeling that such a “unifying” play is needed now more than ever, he launched the notion of a revival. His interest, he says, “blossomed into a group.”
Boy, did it. Hartley and Straz CEO Greg Holland told him how much it would cost to mount such a revival, not least of which would be the challenge of mounting it on the much larger Jaeb stage. (Christopher Jackson, who masterfully directed the premiere, returns for the revival.) A coterie of friends and supporters went about raising the money. That team included former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Florida’s former Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Straz benefactors Frank and Carol Morsani, and former state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, who at age 17 was one of the Middleton High students who took part in the sit-ins.
Even after production expenses were raised, still more people wanted to donate, so Davis talked to WEDU President and CEO Paul Grove about getting involved. Now the PBS station is producing a documentary about the play and the sit-ins. As part of that project, WEDU will film an entire performance, which will be shareable for free with other PBS stations around the country.The money raised so far for the production and the documentary totals approximately $500,000. In part, these funds will enable student matinees, which weren’t part of the original run. Now 2,400 high schoolers from 40 schools, including Blake and Middleton, are scheduled to see the play.
“I’m excited about the young people who will see the matinees,” says Hartley. “It’s an opportunity for them to see what previous generations have done as high school students—that you can make this positive change and you can do it non-violently.”
Even though this chapter of Tampa’s past has remained relatively obscure until now, it’s not ancient history. The actors embody figures who are still remembered and in some cases still alive. Intimidating much?
“Absolutely it was,” says Clay Christopher, who is reprising the role of Rev. Lowry. “It was my first time playing a historical figure. And so many people are still alive who were in his orbit.”
He benefited greatly from the help of Shirley Lowry. The reverend’s second wife, she provided Christopher with “a wealth of knowledge” about her late husband, even lending him articles of clothing that he wore and providing him with audiotapes of Lowry’s sermons, which the actor recorded on his phone. “I call her Mama Lowry,” says Christopher.
Audiences may not recognize Christopher from his most recent role: his Theatre Tampa Bay Award-winning turn as Dr. Frank N. Furter in Jobsite’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” last summer. Do these two characters have anything in common?
“So certainly not heels and a corset. But I would say right off that it’s their ability to command those around them. Frank was commanding in a toxic way, Lowry more inspiring, but both were somebody who people come to out of love,” he added.
Kelli Vonshay plays Roberta Warner, a young woman who takes part in the sit-ins. Though Leib invented the character, Vonshay took inspiration from Joyner’s “fiery energy… her sass.”
Joyner’s fire hasn’t dimmed. Explaining to a TV interviewer why she was supporting the revival of “Righteous,” she said, “I want people to see what happened 65 years ago and what it was like living in a segregated society. We’ve come a long way, but the fight continues.”
Profiles in courage abound in Leib’s play. Mark Wildman plays Clarence Fort, who as head of the NAACP Youth Council bravely led the student sit-ins. Lance Markeith Felton plays a composite character named Dasher who, impatient with Lowry and Fort, organizes his own demonstrations and faces police threats as a result.
Attorney Cody Fowler was a noted defender of equal rights. Hiis grandson suspects it’s because he grew up the son of a single mother. “He had a certain appreciation of people not having what others have,” says Davis. Though Fowler rose to positions of power, including president of the American Bar Association in 1950, “he saw the good in everybody, and believed that when you have the opportunity to step up, you see what can be done. That was his nature.”
Davis was blown away by Jim Wicker’s performance as Fowler.
“Just the little things,” he remembers. “When he laid back in the chair, that gesture—that really hit me deep. He captured not just the spirit but the embodiment of my grandfather.”
Wicker returns both as Fowler and Police Chief Neil Brown in the revival. He’s gratified at Davis’s reaction, especially since “I’ve never played a character that was so famous and so recent.” But he didn’t listen to recordings. “The main thing I try to do is play the character who’s in the text. The words on the page inform what I do.”
As Fowler, he gets to deliver many of the play’s most memorable lines, including this echo of the title: “You can’t be a righteous person if you live in an unrighteous society.”
I’m also fond of another line, spoken by Mayor Julian Lane. When Chief Brown predicts that Lane will lose voters due to his stance on desegregation, Lane assumes he means white people. Brown replies, “Of course, the white people. Who else?” and Lane says:
“Well, something tells me I’m mayor for everyone, ‘who else’ included.”
One reason I’m fond of that line is that, full disclosure, I’m playing Julian Lane. And the more I’ve learned about the man, the more I realize what big shoes I have to fill.
Like Fowler, Lane is remembered as a man who quietly went about doing the right thing, no matter the consequences. His grandson, Julian Lane III, shared a telling anecdote with me—how after he was elected in 1959 he called a maintenance man into his office in Old City Hall and told him to take down the “Colored” signs from restrooms and water fountains after everyone had left the building for the day: “‘Don’t tell anybody about it, just do it.’”
He also chose to take his wife and four children to the Florida State Fair on its designated “Colored Days,” not on regular Fair Days. When his daughter (Julian Lane III’s aunt) asked what the “Colored” and “White” signs were for on the Fair restrooms, he told her, “Don’t worry. They’re coming down very soon.”
Lane’s “Tampa Technique” was not just a political stance. His beliefs ran deep, deriving from a time when he trained African American artillery soldiers in Louisiana during WWII. He would say afterwards that he couldn’t imagine having sent these men to risk their lives on the battlefields and then not allowing them to sit at lunch counters or use beaches and city pools.
Unfortunately, Chief Brown’s prediction came true. Lane did go on to lose re-election by a very narrow margin in 1963, and his defeat was attributed partly to his desegregation efforts.
Nevertheless, he and the other defenders of equal rights who launched desegregation in Tampa in 1960 deserve to be remembered. The righteous did triumph, for a while at least. Here’s hoping the revival of a play that honors that triumph will remind us that, as Arthenia Joyner says, the fight is not over.
Tickets to see “When The Righteous Triumph” inside Jaeb Theater at David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa from March 1-16 are available now and start at $50.
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This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2025.