Last November at Tampa Theatre, surviving members of the group that staged the city’s 1960 Woolworth sit-in got a standing ovation.
The audience had just watched the premiere of “Triumph” (stylized in all-caps) a WEDU documentary telling not just the stories of the student protestors through their eyes, but of the theatrical production that brought the integral part of Tampa’s history to life.
Former state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, who at age 17 was one of the Middleton High students who took part in the sit-ins, addressed the audience in a post-film Q&A. Filmmakers and members of the community (including director Danny Bruno) will once again head to the theater this month for an encore screening of the movie.
[Photos from the pre-screening reception and post-film Q&A are below, all courtesy of WEDU.]
A press release says the first 150 guests receive free popcorn and a soda.
WEDU will host another free screening on Thursday, Feb. 19 at Hillsborough Community College’s Ybor City campus, followed by a post-screening Black History Month panel.
The movie is also now available to stream at home via PBS and on the PBS app.
‘Triumph’ screening and post-film panel
Time Mon., Jan. 19, 3:30 p.m.
Location Tampa Theatre, 711 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602, Tampa
The play, “When the Righteous Triumph,” was written by former Creative Loafing Tampa Bay theater critic Mark E. Leib and commissioned by Stageworks Theatre in 2021. It premiered a year later. Last year’s Best of the Bay-winning revival of the work was made possible by a group led by former Congressman Jim Davis, grandson of NAACP attorney Cody Fowler who helped make Tampa’s action one of the first peaceful, non-violent protests of the sit-in movement.
The strategy of coordination between protestors, faith leaders, elected officials, the media and merchants was dubbed the “Tampa technique.” Former Tampa Mayor Julian Lane, who presided over that coordination, went on to integrate pools, beaches, movie theaters—and lost re-election without regret.
.
Bruno’s film features interviews with protest leader Clarence Fort and Sen. Joyner, along with family members of key figures in Tampa’s desegregation, including Shirley Lowrey, widow of NAACP leader, Reverend A. Leon Lowry; Julian Lane, III, grandson of Mayor Lane; and Davis, who spearheaded the fundraising effort to re-stage the play and develop the documentary (more than half-a-million dollars was collected).
In front of a pre-screening crowd gathered outside downtown’s Wilson building last November, Davis, 68, said that he would take the play—and the story of the courageous teens who changed Tampa history—as far as he could.
And indeed, he has. The New York Times came to Tampa to review the production, and members of the cast performed it in Washington, D.C. where the audience included Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Roughly 10,000 students from across the Bay area also saw the play during morning matinees inside David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts’ Jaeb Theater.
Extending the life of “When The Righteous Triumph” is something Davis discussed with this reporter last March during an appearance on “The Skinny,” a public affairs radio program on WMNF-Tampa 88.5-FM.
“I think my grandfather and Rev. Lowry would be stunned to know that that message is unfortunately timely again and that, once again, we’re living in very tough times,” Davis said about the play’s message to “do the right thing.”
He reminded the radio audience that families back then, just like many today, faced death threats over their wish to truly desegregate the lunch counters.
“It’s very moving for folks that believe in justice and dispense justice, regardless of political party or ideology,” Davis added.
In its review, the New York Times noted that the play, “arrives at a moment when arts and educational offerings are frequently in dispute nationally, and regional arts venues are left navigating shifting terrain.”
Asked if his cohort had to dance around that issue in reviving the work and continuing to bring it audiences, Davis argued that “When The Righteous Triumph” and the story of Tampa’s Woolworth sit-ins is foundational and blows through the politics.
“This is about people. This is about values. This is about what binds us together as Americans—not what we look like, not how we worship, not how we love, not what party we belong to,” Davis said, adding that the arts are speaking to people in ways that elected officials cannot.
“This play inspires empathy. It touches people in the gut, in the heart. That’s why it’s so powerful,” he noted. “And that’s why it’s so needed in these times.”
Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky
This article appears in Jan. 08 – 14, 2026.