All of the characters, with the exception of Frank, take immense pride in their ethnic heritage and the hurdles they've overcome to seize opportunities in the Western world. They view their black heritage as a vital component of their personal and collective identities, influencing every decision they make. Sophie criticizes Frank’s poetry by noting that it is so generic, "anyone reading them couldn’t even tell a Negro wrote them," and insists, "We have to see everything differently because we’re Negroes."

For them, owning land symbolizes personal freedom and serves as a foundation for creating all-black communities. These communities offer a place where members can share experiences, cultivate their unique culture, and support one another in building new lives. Characters like Fannie and Miss Leah recognize the significance of remembering their history. Fannie strives to preserve the past by documenting Miss Leah’s stories, while Miss Leah keeps history alive through oral storytelling. At the play's end, she is seen telling her stories to Minnie’s baby. Miss Leah strongly believes that African Americans must accurately remember their past, as she declares in the opening scene: "Colored folks can’t forget the plantation any more than they can forget their own names. If we forget that, we ain’t got no history past last week." This conviction compels her to tell the baby about the strong black women who preceded her, ensuring the baby girl knows the hard work her ancestors undertook for her future.

Frank presents a stark contrast to the theme of ethnic pride. Although his mother was African American, he distances himself from that aspect of his heritage. He prefers living in London, where his black ancestry is less significant to the English than to Americans. He doesn’t miss interacting with blacks and feels more comfortable with his white friends. His denial of his black heritage is profound, and he is emotionally detached from the experiences of his mother and her generation. He makes inappropriate jokes, such as when Sophie mentions the lack of mulattos in Nicodemus, and he responds, "I can understand why. This is a lot closer to the field than most of us ever want to get! (Laughs.)" While Sophie is determined to keep Nicodemus from being taken over by white speculators, Frank seeks to profit by selling his wife’s share of the homestead to those same speculators. Cleage uses Frank to contrast the ethnic pride of the other characters, whose pride is both hard-earned and profound.

The play's central theme revolves around the concept of freedom, especially the newfound liberation the characters experience. Many were born into slavery and vividly remember that life. Although the idea of heading west with the promise of land was intimidating, they saw it as their best chance to improve their lives and establish new homes and communities for future generations. The sisters connect their freedom to their ancestors' distant past through a ritual they performed when leaving the South, a tradition they continue in the West. They join hands and proclaim:

Because we are free Negro women, born of free Negro women, back as far as time began, we choose this day to leave a place where our lives, our honor, and our very souls are not our own. We choose this day to declare our lives to be our own and no one else’s. And we promise to always remember the day we left Memphis and went west together to be free women as a sacred bond between us with all our trust.

Miss Leah fiercely guards the opportunity to own and...