A group portrait of civil rights pioneers and members of the 1960 Tampa Woolworth sit-ins outside the Franklin Exchange and Wilson buildings in downtown Tampa on Nov. 17, 2025. Seven well-dressed elderly individuals pose outdoors in front of a modern building entrance. Four men and one woman stand in the back row wearing formal suits, dark blazers, a red jacket, and a bright green dress suit with a large fabric flower accent. Seated in front on white folding chairs are three individuals, including a man in a dark suit holding a walking cane in the center and a woman on the right in a grey outfit. Most wear circular white "I SAT / I STAND" pin-back buttons and event credential lanyards.Members of the 1960 Tampa Woolworth sit-ins outside the Franklin Exchange and WIlson buildings in downtown Tampa on Nov. 17, 2025. Credit: c/o WEDU

The story of Tampa’s peaceful February 1960 Woolworth sit-ins cannot be shared far enough. That’s when courageous Black high school students (including figures like former state Sen. Arthenia Joyner and NAACP Youth Council leader Clarence Fort) organized peaceful sit-ins at a downtown F.W. Woolworth lunch counter on Franklin Street.

The action inspired an award-winning play by former Creative Loafing Tampa Bay theater critic Mark Leib, and a documentary about the Stageworks production.

This weekend’s 12th Annual Family Heritage Festival put on by the Hillsborough Public Library Cooperative includes a screening of a documentary that helps tell the untold chapter of Tampa’s role in the civil rights movement.

“Triumph,” produced by WEDU PBS screens for free, twice (noon, 1 p.m.) in between presentations on Florida’s film and television history, Ybor City, and West Tampa.

There’s no cover for the 12th Annual Family Heritage Festival happening Saturday, Sept. 19 at Tampa’s John F. Germany Public Library.

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This article appears in Sept. 17 – 23, 2026.

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Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief…
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