The action takes place in Aunt Ester's house 1839 Wylie Avenue, Hill District, Pittsburgh, 1904. Citizen Barlow, a young man recently arrived from Alabama, comes to Aunt Ester to get his soul washed as he feels responsible for the death of a fellow worker accused of a theft he had committed. In a gospel-induced transe he finds himself on board the slave ship Gem of the Ocean and is taken to the City of Bones. At the end of the play he takes over the stick and coat and mission of Solly Two Kings, a former slave and former Underground Railroad conductor, who still resists oppression in all its forms and is murdered by Caesar, the black upholder of white order.
