On a Friday night in 1904, a young man named Citizen Barlow visits Aunt Ester’s house. Aunt Ester is a “spiritual advisor” in the Black community of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, but Eli—who oversees her daily life—doesn’t let Citizen speak to her. He can come back Tuesday, he tells Citizen, who becomes rowdy. He’s desperate to speak to Aunt Ester because he’s heard that she “washes” souls. As he grapples with Eli, Aunt Ester enters and repeats what Eli said: Citizen can come back Tuesday. Her words have a calming effect on Citizen, who finally leaves.
But Citizen doesn’t really leave. He stands outside, hoping to find a chance to talk to Aunt Ester. The next morning, Eli complains about Citizen to Black Mary, who is Aunt Ester’s protégé and housekeeper. Black Mary assures Eli that Citizen will leave at some point, probably joining the crowd living under a nearby bridge. There has been a growing number of people under that bridge because of Black Mary’s brother, Caesar, who works as the town’s constable (an official with limited powers to enforce the law). Caesar owns a boarding house and is strict about rent payments. He has been evicting so many tenants that Black Mary and Eli think the streets will soon be full of people with nowhere to go.
A traveling salesman named Rutherford Selig stops by the house. He says that the local mill is shut down. Eli tells him that a man named Garret Brown was accused of stealing a bucket of nails, and when Caesar tried to arrest him, he jumped into the nearby river. Everyone thought he’d come out, but he stayed in the water and drowned. Black Mary says he could have gotten out and served 30 days in jail; instead, he died to avoid punishment.
Solly, an old friend of Aunt Ester’s, visits the house and joins the conversation. He makes a living collecting dog poop and selling it to local shoemakers, who use it while working with leather. Black Mary hates when he brings dog poop into the house, but she still agrees to read aloud a letter he has received from his sister in Alabama. The letter says that life for Black people in the South is quite dangerous, as racist white people are using violence to keep Black people from traveling north in search of better lives. Solly’s sister wants to come north, so he decides to make a trip back down to Alabama.
Solly and Eli go to Garret Brown’s funeral while Black Mary goes downtown. With nobody watching, Citizen Barlow sneaks in an open window and creeps into the kitchen, where he stuffs his face with food. Aunt Ester catches him, but she isn’t angry. He insists that he isn’t there to steal anything—he just needs her help. They sit down and she offers him some cornbread. She talks about Garret Brown while Citizen eats, and when Citizen notes that Garret could have gotten out of the water, Aunt Ester disagrees: Garret made the noble choice to die an innocent man instead of living in false guilt.
Conversation turns to Citizen’s life. He’s from Alabama and has only been in the North for four days. He found a job at the mill, which promised to pay him $2 per day. But then they downgraded him to $1.50. They also promised him room and board but then overcharged him and didn’t provide food. When he got his first paycheck, it was much less than he’d been told, so he couldn’t pay rent. Now the mill says he can’t leave to work anywhere else because he has to pay off his debt. Citizen was preparing to run away, but then he wound up killing someone, which is why he needs Aunt Ester to “wash” his soul—he feels horrible inside, as if there’s a hole in him. Although Ester doesn’t cleanse him right away, she tells him everything will be all right, and then she says he can stay at her house and help Eli build a wall in the backyard.
A riot breaks out at the mill later that day. Solly comes to Aunt Ester’s house and says he’s almost ready to travel south. He talks to Citizen about the meaning of freedom, both of them agreeing that freedom is nothing more than “what you make it.” Solly asks Citizen to help him by coming to Alabama, but Citizen doesn’t want to because he just came north. Their conversation gets interrupted when Caesar comes over and complains about the riot. Seeing Citizen for the first time, he peppers him with questions, wanting to know if he has a job and a place to live. His questions are laced with suspicion, and he subtly threatens to arrest Citizen if he steps out of line. As Solly leaves the house, Caesar says he can’t carry around the walking stick he’s been using for decades—it is, Caesar claims, a weapon.
When everyone else leaves, Caesar talks to Black Mary. He wishes she’d stop hanging around Aunt Ester’s house and instead work with him. They used to work together as siblings, but she has no interest in doing that anymore. After all, Caesar shot and killed a young man for stealing a loaf of bread. Black Mary doesn’t like that kind of behavior, and though she accepts Caesar as a brother, she doesn’t approve of his decisions. He then goes on a long rant about his past. He used to sell food in poor neighborhoods, but the law shut his operation down because he didn’t have a license. When he finally got a license and started up again, he grew frustrated that his customers always wanted bigger servings, so he decided to open a boarding house—except, the bank wouldn’t lend money to him unless he put up some kind of collateral. He didn’t have anything of value, so he opened an illegal gambling business. He ended up shooting a few people while running this business and was eventually put in jail. While serving time, he realized he could prosper by working against his fellow inmates. His ability to put down a prison rebellion impressed the mayor, who freed him and made him a constable. He then used his badge and gun as collateral and bought a house. He now enforces the law in the Hill District and thinks everyone in his community resents him because he’s powerful. What really pains him, though, is that Black Mary resents him.
That night, Aunt Ester sits with Citizen and asks why he wanted to speak to her. He explains that he was the one who stole the nails and that he let Garret Brown take the blame. She agrees to help, saying she’ll show him how to travel to the City of Bones. First, though, he has to find two pennies lying next to each other. He also has to find a man named Jilson Grant, who will have something for him. Citizen strikes out right away. When Black Mary asks about the two pennies, Ester admits that they have no special power—the only thing that matters is whether or not Citizen believes they have power. Once he finds the pennies, he’ll feel ready to undergo great change.
The next day, Selig visits the house and says that everyone is talking about a fire that happened the previous night at the mill. The white people in the surrounding areas are furious, and some are even saying they would gladly fight another Civil War to bring back slavery. When Selig leaves, Citizen bursts into the kitchen and announces that he found the two pennies. He couldn’t find Jilson Grant, but Aunt Ester says he’ll have to make do with just the pennies. She explains that Citizen will be traveling to the City of Bones in a boat, which she makes out of a Bill of Sale. The city is a gleaming metropolis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s made entirely of bones and is inhabited by the souls of African people who didn’t make it across the ocean on the slave ships. She goes to her room to prepare. Meanwhile, Citizen drinks whiskey with Solly and Eli. Solly talks about his experience as an enslaved person. He managed to escape, but when he reached Canada, he had to turn back because he couldn’t enjoy his freedom while everyone he loved remained in slavery. He joined the Underground Railroad and worked with Eli to free enslaved people.
When Ester returns, she hands Citizen the slave ship made from a Bill of Sale. She describes what it’s like on the ship, and Citizen gets so swept up in her words that he starts to feel as if he’s really on the boat. Eli, Solly, and Black Mary sing in the background while Aunt Ester narrates Citizen’s experience. At a certain point she tells him to go below deck, where he realizes he’s surrounded by thousands of people chained to the boat. They all have his face, he yells, and then two enslavers start whipping him. By undergoing this harrowing experience, Citizen gains access to the City of Bones. It’s one of the most beautiful places he’s ever seen. Before he can enter, though, he has to confront one of its 12 gatekeepers. And the gatekeeper he encounters is none other than Garret Brown. Ester tells him to be honest with Garret, so he confesses to stealing the bucket of nails. Hearing his confession, Garret Brown lets him pass. Citizen enters the city and feels completely reborn.
Caesar busts into the house and tells Solly that he’s under arrest: somebody saw him set fire to the mill. Solly hits Caesar in the knee with his walking stick and runs away. After Caesar rushes out to track him down, Aunt Ester tells Citizen to find Selig. Citizen quickly brings Selig back, and Aunt Ester asks him to smuggle Solly to safety in his wagon, at which point Solly comes out of the back room and says that he did, indeed, burn down the mill. Because Caesar will surely kill him if he catches him, Solly will have to leave town undetected and travel south. Hearing this, Citizen steps forward and says he’ll join Solly and Selig on their journey.
Caesar returns, so Solly and Citizen sneak out the back. Caesar tells Selig how to get out of town without encountering the roadblocks that have been set up to find Solly. Thanking him, Selig leaves. Caesar then places Aunt Ester under arrest for harboring Solly, though she challenges his authority by saying that his warrant means nothing—she, too, has a piece of paper: it’s a Bill of Sale from when an enslaver sold her as a child. The Bill of Sale says she’s legal property, but she knows that’s untrue. Similarly, she has no respect for Caesar’s warrant. Still, she goes with him to the station.
When Aunt Ester comes home after posting bail, Selig rushes into the kitchen and says that Caesar shot Solly. Citizen comes in with Solly and lies him out on the table. As Aunt Ester tends to his wounds, Citizen and Selig explain that they were out of town when Solly said they had to turn back: he couldn’t escape while the mill workers who rioted against their oppressors remained in jail. He planned to break them out and burn down the jail. But on the way back they encountered Caesar, who shot Solly. Solly dies shortly after arriving at Aunt Ester’s house. When Citizen hears Caesar approaching, he runs out the back. Caesar enters and says he thinks that Solly and Citizen stole Selig’s wagon. Black Mary angrily addresses Caesar, informing him that she no longer sees him as her brother. Struck to his core, Caesar silently leaves, at which point Citizen comes out of hiding. Eli raises a toast to Solly as Citizen puts on Solly’s hat and takes his walking stick. He finds the letter from Solly’s sister, looks at it for a moment, and then leaves.
