The novel begins with an introduction in which the editor explains the process of writing it. The subject of the novel, Miss Jane Pittman agreed to tell him her story in 1962, after years of persuading her. The writer, who is also a teacher, wants to hear her side of the story feeling that history often omits certain things. When Miss Jane begins to tell her story, she is already over 100 years old and sometimes forgets certain things. Because of this, the story is not necessarily Miss Jane’s story but rather the story of a community that applies to many people. The editor also reveals that sadly, Miss Jane died before the novel was finished.
The first chapter presents Miss Jane Pittman as a child and slave working for her mistress. When Yankees soldier pass by the house where she lives, she is asked what her name is. When the child says her name is Ticey, a slave name, a corporal named Brown tells her that she should change her name to a non-slave name and even suggest the name Jane, like her daughter. The corporal also tells her that she should visit him in Ohio after she will be freed from slavery before leaving with the other soldiers. When Ticey refuses to response to her old name and insist on being called Jane, her masters get angry and after they beat her, she is sent to work in the fields.
Soon after that, the masters are ordered to free their slaves. Many chose to remain with their old masters who now offer to pay them for their services but Jane decides to leave, not fearing the outside world. Jane is given some food and clothes and she leaves with a group of other former slaves.
The group of now free slaved decide to head north. The slaves start to rename themselves and when a slow-wit slave wants to rename himself Brown, Jane tells him that he can’t because that is her name. The man grabs Jane but she is saved by another woman in her group, Big Laura.
The small group sleeps outside that night under bushes and in the morning they are awaken when someone screams when they see Patrollers. Patrollers where white men who searched for runaway slaves. Jane hides under a bush with Big Laura’s son, Ned and they survive because of it. The rest of the group is killed by the Patrollers so Jane takes the food she finds and runs with Ned. Jane and Ned walk all day and most of the night until they reach a river that they can’t pass. That night, Jane thinks about all the men and women who were killed and thinks about what she will do next.
In the morning, Jane and Ned walk along the river trying to find a way to pass it. They find a group of black slaves and a white woman returning to her land. The lady offers Jane to return with her to her plantation and promises to never beat her but Jane refuses, telling her that she needs to find the Yankee soldier in Ohio. The white woman gives her some meat and food and tells them that they need to cross the river with a ferry and that she will need money. She insists again that Jane and Ned should either return to their plantation or go with her but Jane refuses so she leaves with Ned.
Jane and Ned find the ferry but they are unable to get on it because they have no money. A white man passes by them and he helps them get across. The man, an investigator for the Freedom Bureau, takes Jane and Ned to a house where they are fed, bathed and where they have a place to sleep. Before going to bed, Jane tells Ned that they will leave the next day.
Before they go to sleep, a white man comes in am makes them pray before being allowed to sleep. The next morning, Jane and Ned find that they have to lean their ABCs before being allowed to play but they decide that they want to leave so Jane and Ned pack their belongings while the other children watch.
Jane and Ned soon encounter a group of Yankee soldiers and Jane asks if there is any soldier named Brown in their camp. When a soldier tells them that there is a Colonel Brown, Jane heads towards the camp only to find that Colonel Brown is not the same soldier she meet while she was still a slave.
Jane and Ned leave until they stumble upon a poor white woman. Jane asks the woman to give her some water and even thought the woman says harsh thinks about black people, she gives Ned and Jane water.
Ned and Jane continue their journey and one night they meet a solitary black man cooking a rabbit over a fire. The man gives Jane and Ned each a piece from his rabbit and then tells them that he is heading south to find his father. When Jane tells him that they are going to Ohio, the black man tells them that they still have a long way to go and that they should go back to their plantation. Jane and Ned run away from him but return because of the cold. In the morning, Ned and Jane wake up to find the black man gone.
The next day, Ned and Jane are travelling through the swamps in Louisiana when they see an old man sitting on a porch who tells them where they are. When Jane tells him that they are travelling to Ohio, the man shows them how far Ohio is on the map and theorizes the children would need approximately thirty years before reaching it. Jane refuses to stop and she and Ned start traveling again, this time walking almost a week.
When the children encounter a white man with a wagon, they ask him to take them as well even though he was not heading into the direction they wanted to go. The white man, Job, takes Jane and Ned home. There he feeds them cornbread and lets them sleep into an empty food crib despite his wife’s protests.
The next morning, Job takes the two children to Mr. Bone, a plantation owner. He agrees to take Jane to work on his plantation and pay her six dollars a month and Jane agrees to work for him for ten years. After a month, Jane’s pay is raised to ten dollars because of her efficiency.
Ned and Jane are educated by a black man and Ned soon learns to read. Soon after slavery was abolished, black leaders emerged in helping to reorganize the south. Extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the White Brotherhood and the Camellias of Luzana continued to cause troubles, killing blacks and white people helping the black ones.
The life on the plantation soon changes when Mr. Bone sells the plantation to a Confederate Colonel who slowly returns the plantation to the state it was before the slavery was abolished. Soon, the black people start leaving and even though the whites are glad at first because of this, they son realize that they need them to work on the plantations. Despite this, the black people continue to run in the middle of the night, searching for a better life.
Time passes and Ned, who has changed his name to Edward Stephen, is now seventeen and is involved in a group that helps black people escape from the plantations where they work. Colonel Dye tells Jane that Ned has to stop helping other blacks escape but Ned refuses. As a result, Jane is attacked by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Ned insists that they must leave but Jane decides to stay on the plantation.
Soon after Ned leaves, Jane marries Joe Pittman, the man who breaks horses for Colonel Dye. Ned sends her letters, telling her that he is in Kansas. There he helps relocate black people for a while and after that he begins working on a farm and studying to become a teacher.
Meanwhile, Joe and Jane move to another ranch near the Texas border where they are given a house and fed. Joe will continue to break horses and Jane will work in the house with another black woman named Molly. Molly tries to make Jane leave but is unsuccessful so Molly leaves but continues to visit her old mistress. Molly dies shortly after she quits her job.
Joe and Jane remain at the ranch for about ten years. Jane is haunted by the idea that one day Joe will be killed by a black stallion and when she sees a one on the farm, she gets even more scared. Jane tries to set the black stallion free but Joe sees her and runs after the horse. The next day, the men on the farm return with Joe’s horse and with his dead body.
A few years after Jon’s death, Jane meets Felton who is a fisherman and they move together in the Southwestern part of Louisiana where they live for a few years together. Suddenly, Felton leaves her and Ned comes back to her with his wife, Vivian and his three children.
A man with whom Miss Jane is friends with, Albert Cluveau, warns Jane that many men from the village want to kill Ned. When Jane warns Ned, he refuses to leave and Vivian tells her that Ned warned her that something like that could happen if they were to come back.
Ned continues to give talks and advice his students to rise above the status the society gives them. Ned knows that he is watched by white men but he continues his speech either way. A month later after he gave his speck, Ned is killed in the woods by Albert. The town sheriff dismisses the students’ testimony that Albert killed Ned so his death remains unsolved. Vivian returns to Kansas with her children and a new teacher takes Ned’s place. The school Ned wanted to build is eventually finished and it remains standing until 1927 when a flood destroys the school.
After Ned’s death, Jane searches for Albert and tells him that when he dies, the Chariot of Hell will go after him and people will hear him scream. While Albert lives another 10 years, he is haunted by what Jane said and believed that she put a voodoo spell on him. Jane’s predictions come to be true and when Albert nears his death, he screams for three days before finally dying in his daughter’s arms.
Jane moves to a plantation run by Mr. Samson and despite her old age, he agrees to hire her. Miss Jane moves from where she used to live and she also begins to attend church. After she begins to attend church, she has a dream in which Ned, Joe and Albert appears. When she wakes up, Jane realizes that she has found her religion.
In 1927, a huge flood overtakes the area and many man-made buildings are destroyed, including the school Ned started to build.
Miss Jane moves into a house near the main house and because she has a room all to herself, the new teacher Miss Lilly moves in with her. Miss Lilly wants to teach the black children how to behave properly in the society and even buys them toothbrushes and fights with the parents who discipline their children too harshly. Miss Lilly leaves after a year and a new teacher named Hardy comes in her place. Hardy doesn’t stay for a long period of time either because he developed a habit of flirting with young girls which enraged the parents. The school remains without a teacher for a year until the place is filled by Mary Agnes LeFabre.
Lady Mary is a Catholic Creole who is almost white. Her grandmother married a white gentleman and after his death, he left her his property and even slaves. Lady Mary’s family were not happy when they found that she wanted to teach black children as they considered that it would bring disgrace to her family.
Tee Bob, the landowner’s son sees one day Lay Mary and he becomes smitten by her. Tee Bob begins to spend a lot of time with Lady Mary despite the fact that he is engaged to another woman. One of Tee Bob’s friends, Jimmy Caya, tells Bob that he should have sex with Mary Agnes as much as he can but that he can’t love her because she is a black woman. Tee Bob strikes Jimmy and they both become quiet and head towards the house.
Tee Bob goes to Mary Agnes and tells her to run away together and get married. Mary refuses and something happens in the house and Tee Bob leaves in a hurry. Clamp Brown, a man working on the plantation, sees Tee Bob leaving in a hurry and goes inside Mary’s house, Clamp Brown sees Mary on the floor so he goes searching for Miss Jane and a woman named Ida.
Clamp finds Jane with Jules Raynard, Tee Bob’s godfather, talking in the house. Clamp tells them that Miss Mary has been ravished so Jane and Raynard try to open the library door, the place where Tee Bob hid. When they get inside, they find Tee Bob dead on a chair and with a letter opener nearby.
Jimmy also comes and claims that everything is Mary Agnes’s fault and that she should be punished. Tee Bob’s father sends Jimmy home and tells him that the one who will have to pay will be Jimmy. The Sheriff and Jules go and talk with Mary and after she tells them that nothing happened and that Tee Bob only pushed her which resulted in her falling and hitting her head, Jules insists that the best thing she can do is leave and never return back if she wants to live. After that, Jules and the Sheriff go and announce Tee Bob’s parents what has just happened.
The last section of the novel opens with Jane presenting the desire of the black community in finding the one child that will save them from oppression. Which each new born child, the belief becomes stronger until Shirley Aaron is born and everyone believes that he is the one and as a result he looked as being someone special. Aaron however begins to behave mischievously and refuses to become a preacher which shocks many from his community.
After Tee Bob’s death, life on the plantation changed. The land was leases to Cajuns who brought tractors for farming and reduced the numbers of workers they needed and so only the children and the elderly remained on the plantation.
Aaron soon leaves the plantation to continue his studies. Soon after he leaves, the southern civil rights movement starts to kick in. as a result, many plantation owners decide to tell the members from the black community that they will have to leave the property if they are caught participating in the movements or if they have family members participating. Soon after that, the son of a woman named Yoko is caught protesting and Yoko and her family is told to leave.
A few months late, Aaron returns and goes to church. There he tells those present that they must protest in Bayonne against the restrictions imposed on black people. Jane is willing to help him but also tells him that not many will be willing because the majority of the population is too old.
Aaron leaves but Jane manages to convince some people to go to Bayonne. Among them is Lena, Aaron’s aunt and Mary Hodges, a woman who lives with Jane. On Monday morning, when they prepare to go to Bayonne, a large group of black people gather to go with them. Samson also appears and tells them that Aaron has been killed and that they should all return to their homes. Jane refuses to return and the novel ends with Jane leading the crowd towards Bayonne.
