A stage play about the editor and publisher of Richmond’s seminal African American newspaper will see its world premiere almost a century after his death.

In partnership with the descendants of John Mitchell Jr. and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, the Firehouse Theatre has commissioned a play about the Richmond Planet’s “Fighting Editor.” Scheduled to open March 2027, the play is in early development after the local theater recently selected Massachusetts-based writer Kristen Adele Calhoun to pen the story.

Born enslaved in 1863, John Mitchell Jr. was a 21-year-old school teacher when he was placed in charge of the new weekly paper. Until his death in 1929, Mitchell pressed against racial injustice, exposing the reality of segregation, discrimination and racial terror lynchings.

Nathaniel Shaw, Firehouse’s producing artistic director, says he became interested in Mitchell’s story as he was seeking conceptual play ideas that could shine a light on Virginia’s foundational place in American history.

“Once I got a sense of Mr. Mitchell’s remarkable heroism and incredible legacy, it became evident to me that this is one of the all-too-many untold or lesser known stories of true heroes that stood up against oppression in the United States,” Shaw says. “It felt like the perfect play for Firehouse to support development on.”

The play is the next product of contemporary efforts to recognize Mitchell and the Richmond Planet. But the dramatization of his story may offer one of the most intimate looks into his life.

Mitchell’s face and steely eyes adorn a mural across from a statue of Maggie L. Walker, another icon of Richmond’s Civil Rights movement more than a century ago. And as of 2023, the Virginia DMV sells license plates bearing the muscular arm and raised fist that flexed on the Planet’s masthead, representing the power free Black people exercised a generation after the abolition of slavery in the United States.

While previously denied civil liberties were unlocked after the Civil War, resistance against Reconstruction led to other cruelties and injustices. Mitchell chose to fight back.

“I feel like we have this romantic notion of how great figures in history become great, that they were born that way and destined for significance,” says Joseph Rogers, community engagement manager at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. “I think what his story really proves more than anything else is that we’re all capable of great acts.”

Rogers says Mitchell was likely influenced by the memories of older relatives who toiled under slavery. Coming of age in the aftermath of the war, Mitchell advocated for Black self-reliance, entrepreneurship and governance. In addition to the paper, he also served on the Richmond City Council and created his own bank.

Simultaneously, the state disenfranchised Black voters widely at the turn of the 20th century with the adoption of a new state constitution that created voting restrictions, such as poll taxes and civic literacy tests. Around the same time, Mitchell, Walker and other civil rights activists launched a two-year boycott against the city’s segregated streetcar system. The streetcar company went bankrupt in the end but the Virginia General Assembly passed a state law mandating segregation on public transportation. It was hard for Mitchell to see the civil rights his people gained fade away.

“As he watched a lot of those victories unravel, he clung fiercely to maintaining the level of dignity that was promised,” Rogers explains. “He was honest to himself and his cause. Obviously he had his stumbles and his doubts. But the great part about a play—you get to see the person so close to you experiencing doubt and fatigue, but continuing to stay the course.”

John Mitchell Jr., the executive director of the modern Richmond Planet Foundation and a descendant of the famous publisher, says he’s excited for the play. He adds that his ancestor also appreciated theater, noting how he once quoted Shakespeare in response to violent threats against him following his coverage of a lynching in Charlotte County.

“My father would do stuff like that, and I would be like, ‘What the heck are you talking about?’” Mitchell recalls, speaking of how he sees his namesake’s personality passing through generations. “As a kid I didn’t know. But when I got older, I learned.”

Shaw says he felt confident selecting Calhoun from the more than 40 people who applied to write the play. Even before seeing her interact and work with the Mitchell family during a visit in March, Shaw notes that he was impressed with her previous works, including a production about two newly emancipated people on the original Juneteenth in 1865.

“Looking at a historical event and managing to so beautifully humanize the characters within that, and not feel like she’s just regurgitating history, she’s bringing you into the moment in a very personal way,” Shaw says.

Calhoun will return to Richmond this fall and continue working with the Mitchell family and Firehouse to recreate the Fighting Editor’s personality for the stage.

“That’s my father, my uncle, my aunt, my brother, my sister and my cousins. We took on a lot of those traits,” Mitchell says. “It’s going to be interesting to see how she interprets some of the stories that we’re telling her and the historical record.”