Mark Leib was familiar with the real-life setting of his play When the Righteous Triumph, the long-gone Woolworth on Franklin Street in downtown Tampa.
“That’s the Woolworth I used to go to as a child,” Leib said. “I remember that lunch counter from my childhood.
“It never occurred to me that black people weren’t allowed to sit there,” he said.
Leib’s play tells the story of the protest and the protesters, their determination in the face of racist hostility to demand equal treatment.
Although he wasn’t aware of the sit-ins, Leib was aware of discrimination as a child growing up in Tampa.
“I was conscious that in grocery stores there were water fountains that said white next to water fountains that said colored,” Leib said. “There were bathrooms in stores and one said white, one said colored, but I never understood it.”
Leib’s study of the Hebrew Bible inspired him to use his work to advance social justice. Coupled with his wife’s encouragement to write about his hometown, Leib studied Tampa’s history for potential topics.
The sit-ins struck Leib as an ideal subject for a play.
“I could imagine a Woolworth counter center stage and someone trying to get a meal there and being told they had to leave,” Leib said.
Leib pitched the idea to Stageworks Artistic Director Karla Hartley, who commissioned the play. It premiered at Stageworks in 2023, impressing, among others, former Rep. Jim Davis who told Leib his play needed to be on a bigger stage.
Davis did more than make a suggestion. He led a fundraising effort that brought When the Righteous Triumph to Straz Center’s Jaeb Theater, running through Sunday.
Davis is the grandson of Cody Fowler, who chaired Tampa’s and Florida’s Bi-Racial Commissions. Fowler served as a mediator between protesters and downtown businesses and is a character in the play.
Leib added scenes involving Ku Klux Klan members after realizing his original script lacked “the element of evil” Leib said.
“Evil was a big part of this,” Leib said. “Evil was the reason that they had to fight in the first place, and I need to put that on stage.”
That evil included shots being fired into the home of Rev. A. Leon Lowry who, with NAACP Youth Council leader Clarence Fort, led the protests.
The protests remained peaceful, thanks to the restraint of the protesters in the face of racist abuse, and also the actions of Julian Lane, Tampa’s mayor during the protests.
Lane instructed police to protect the protesters. He also appointed a Biracial Committee which included Fowler and Lowry. Negotiations with downtown businesses began soon after the first protest on Feb. 29. By September, lunch counters in downtown Tampa were open to blacks and whites.
The response to When the Righteous Triumph supports Leib’s contention that social justice is still important to many.
“There are still a lot of people who want progress and who want racial equality,” Leib said, adding that the audience’s reaction to the play has been “just overwhelming to me.”
“You could tell that the audience was not just cheering on the characters,” Leib said. “They were cheering the ideas, the idea of civil rights and the idea of equality.”
