The play begins with the Black Man (With Watermelon) telling everyone that he will move his hands. He repeats this throughout the opening scene. We hear that the play is not happening in a linear fashion of time, this is announced by the Black Woman With Fried Drumstick, the Black Man's wife. She tells us that he died painlessly, "He falls twenty-three floors to his death." We hear Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread urge her to "write this down" and to "hide it under a rock." Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut says that before Columbus discovered that the world wasn't flat, that round didn't have a /d/ it was simply "roun." And once Columbus discovered the earth was round they added the /d/ and it put the white men in their place, and this led to the white men then putting black men in their place, which is outside of history.
In the next scene Black Man finds himself being killed in another fashion, this time by being electrocuted. Next, the chorus of characters including, Prune and Prisms and Lots of Grease And Lots of Pork come onto the stage to accompany in another death of the Black Man who is described by the Voice On Thuh Tee V as being Gamble Major, who became a integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, and that he died at the age of 38. The Black Man is being chased by dogs who have his scent. He jumps into a river, but when he comes out the dogs pick up his scent again in order to kill him. We hear how before Columbus the world was "roun" and the white men wouldn't venture into the water because dragons were there.
Next the Black Woman and Black Man describe the Black Man's next death, from being hung. He was put on a horse and the horse ran away and left him hanging by his neck. All the Black Man wants to do is to loosen his collar so he can breathe, his wife tells him he don't need to breathe anymore because he's dead.
In the second chorus of the play we hear them work through the hanging of the Black Man until Ham begins to describe how the lineage of the Black Man became what it is. This section is jazz-like, jumping around from one relationship to another without much of it connecting in a clear manner. In the next scene, the Black Man and Black Woman seek for one another to "miss me", "remember me" and to "call on me sometime." And, in the final scene, the chorus is lead by Yes And Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread proclaiming to to "write it down because if you dont write it down then we will come along and tell the future that we did not exist." And the Black Man and Black Woman ask one another to "miss me", "remember me" as ALL of the characters say "Hold it" repeatedly as the play ends.
