When Ruth Jackson is mourning the death of her husband, the lustful, racist — and white — Sheriff Bixby starts groping her.

“Let me go check on my baby. She’s been sick,” said Ruth.

She then goes into another room and comes back with a revolver and shoots the sheriff dead.

Relax. It’s only a play in the N.C. Central University Theatre — Howard Craft’s “The Wise Ones.”

The play, presented by the NCCU theatre department from Feb. 11-13, is a vivid exploration of the complex consequences for two families during the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee’s education and voter registration drive in the 1960s.

“The Wise Ones,” a New Play Project winner set in the fictional town of Hicksville, Ala. in 1965, showcases two families.

One family believes in the cause and aids those fighting for the cause. The other family believes that the voter drive will be the death knell for the black community.

“Craft did it again,” said Gil Faison, who plays the role of Silas Jackson. “This play really captured the times.”

The Graham family, made up of Ozelle Graham, played by JuQuarry Armstrong, and Betty Graham, played by Lauren Turner, houses and

supports SNCC.

The Jackson family has a “business operation” with the sheriff by the way of the stepfather, Silas, played by Gil Faison.

The rebellious stepson, Judah, played by Justin Weeks, shows a boy growing into a man while Ruth, played by Pamela McGill, portrays an independent yet boisterous woman.

In 90 minutes, she cooked, cleaned, was smacked by her husband, thrown down, cried, and even shot the sheriff, twice. Bravo.

With great characters and excellent sound effects and lighting, Craft, a native of Goldsboro, N.C. and an NCCU graduate said he wanted to explore the pain and conflict blacks faced when struggling for their rights in the Jim Crow South.

“I never knew what it was like to drive from North Carolina to Newark, New Jersey and not be able to stop to get a bite to eat or use the bathroom until you got out the south, but I remember the stories,” said Craft.

“I remember the story about the bullet hole in the window of my grandparents’ den window, the result of someone shooting into the house because of my grandfather’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.”

He remembers the horrifying tale of the cross burning in Mrs. Hamilton’s yard who lived three doors down from his grandparents.

Craft recalled watching the Civil Rights Movement in movies and TV specials and said that the media never seemed to match the stories he heard as a child.

According to Craft, the portrayal of the civil rights struggle was watered down.

“I wanted to write something that would capture not only the complexity of the times, but the complexities of the people and the strategies and philosophies the people used to struggle for the basic human rights denied to them,” said Craft.

Craft said that a friend, Husan Kwame Jeffries, came across the story of the Alabama families and the SNCC organizers.

“That story and those of my family and elders make up the fabric of what is ‘The Wise Ones,’” said Craft.

SNCC was formed in 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh.

It was created after North Carolina A&T State University students were refused service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro.

NCCU associate professor Karen Dacons-Brock directed “The Wise Ones.”

It is Craft’s second play to win the NCCU New Play Project.