Given the chance, Artenia Joyner would have ordered a glass of orange juice and a bacon and egg sandwich. Instead, workers at the FW Woolworth store in Tampa, Florida declared that she and other high school students were closed 65 years ago.
The student refused to leave without being served. The protests did not carry any nationally prominent Greensborosit Inn, Montgomery Boycott or Selma's march. “All I found is that no one knows what happened,” the 82-year-old Joyner said recently. However, the act of resistance produced consequences. Within a few months, the counter in Tampa was separated. Other public areas such as beaches and cinemas were followed.
Joyner hopes that more people will learn about Florida's contribution to the civil rights movement through the dramatic play “When the Righteous Triumph,” the 1960 protest. After making its brief debut in 2023, the play will be performed at the Jeb Theatre, inside Tampa's David A. Strass Junior Center for Performing Arts Center, along with viewers, including students from around 40 local schools.
The play arrives at the moment when art and education provisions are frequently in conflict nationwide, and local art venues navigate the moving terrain.
Several arts groups sued the National Fund for the Arts this week for a new mandate that grant applicants must comply with the Trump administration's executive order, with the exception of promoting “gender ideology.” President Trump recently signed an executive order withheld funds from schools that teach the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.”
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis describes the state as “dying where he woke up.” He signed a law that many believe will dramatically limit racial education in schools, and rejected the $32 million art grant approved by state lawmakers last year.
“We're trying to get on a really subtle line when we talk about plays and how to talk about plays,” said Carla Hartley, the artistic director of the Stageworks Theater, which originally hosted the production. “So we don't portray the rage of certain people in the state government.”
Tampa mayor Jane Custer welcomed the performance and was scheduled to attend. “The play reminds us of the importance of civic participation and the progress we have made, especially when many people want to adjust to news and current events,” she said.
The first run of “right victory” caught the eye of former US representative Jim Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor nearly 20 years ago. Davis is the grandson of Cody Fowler. Cody Fowler is a lawyer who has appeared in the play and is seeking integration into the Tampa business.
So Davis took it to revive the play, and students in particular were able to learn why some streets were named after a particular person, so that more people could see it.
“They want to touch and feel something that means to them as part of history, and that's what this play does,” Davis said.
Art Grants fluctuate every year. Hartley said her organization expects a shortfall of about $60,000 due to recent cuts. The region is also recovering from two hurricanes, with local theatres still adapting to smaller audiences after the pandemic.
Hartley expected Davis to flash at the cost of reviving the play. Instead, he moved forward.
Davis has raised a funding committee that raised about $500,000 to produce television and accompanying documentary plays towards production costs.
“The change will come locally,” Davis said. “We don't intend to come to the state or country's capital. Power is in what the community has done in the past.”
Matinee performances with post-show discussion featuring real-life sit-in participants are offered to high school students. Davis said only one high school refused an invitation to concerns about language in the play.
“We have been very careful about postponing age appropriate to parents and educators,” he said.
On Thursday evening, Davis spoke to an opening audience of about 300 people. He walked to the stage equipped as an old-fashioned diner, with frayed newspaper clippings of sit-ins highlighted in the background.
“We're here tonight because our crew believes that this inspiring message about how we can come together in these turbulent times is a very timely and persuasive message,” he said. “Not only for the city, but also for the wonderful state of Florida, as well as for the country.”
Playwright Mark Leive began writing “Time of Victory of Justice” in 2021. Its director, Chris Jackson, has returned following his original run, like almost all of his cast members. Archives, grainy black and white footage from the Civil Rights Movement was spliced between the scenes.
Recent national and regional scrutiny of the art did not invade the opening performance. At the end of the approximately two hours of play, a grateful audience clapped and cheered.
Joyner, a lawyer and state senator, was a junior at Middleton High School in 1960. Clarence Fort, chairman of Tampa's NAACP Youth Council, organized the protest, bringing in about 40 students from two high schools. Pastor A. Leon Raleigh, who taught Martin Luther King Jr. at Morehouse College in Atlanta, supported the students.
Students first met at church to discuss what to expect. Joyner said that violence could erupt.
“But that didn't happen,” she said. “They got together, negotiated, and all the stores opened at the same time. And that was the beginning of the end of the separation at the Tampa store.”
Julian Lane, then-Mayor of Tampa, ordered police to protect the demonstrators. The sit-in lasted for several days.
“It was a flashback to the past and regained memories. Joyner added, “We are delighted to educate the public and students.
