The play is set in 1911 in a Pittsburgh boarding house owned by Seth and Bertha Holly, a hard-working African-American couple. A variety of interesting characters take up residence, including an elderly “root worker” named Bynum who says he has the power to bind people together. Soon a mysterious man named Herald Loomis arrives, who has traveled from the south with his young daughter in search of his wife. The play’s title refers to Herald’s story of having been held captive by Joe Turner, a white man in Tennessee who pulled African-American men into slavery for a period of seven years.