within himself a terrible conflict over his religious heritage. The novel relates what happens on his fourteenth birthday, a day only his mother remembers. The final chapter finds John writhing on the floor of a sanctuary, his soul the prize in a battle he does not comprehend.

Roy Grimes

Roy Grimes, John’s younger half brother. He is indifferent to religion and expected to be in trouble; he does not disappoint. Roy is the favorite of the Reverend Gabriel Grimes, whereas John is the child of his mother’s heart—and sin.

The Reverend Gabriel Grimes

The Reverend Gabriel Grimes, a tyrannical, puritan man, the husband of Elizabeth and father of three of her children, but not of John. Gabriel cannot love John because he cannot forgive the circumstances of his birth; he idealizes his “natural” son, Roy. John represents a child whom Gabriel had conceived with a lover out of wedlock, then abandoned. John thus serves as a reminder of the failure of his own flesh. John also symbolizes for the preacher the former sinfulness of his second wife, Elizabeth.

Brother Elisha

Brother Elisha, a seventeen-year-old preacher in the storefront church of John’s family, the Temple of the Fire Baptized Congregational Church. He is a young, handsome man, consumed by religious fervor, and he is the object of John’s spiritual and physical longing.

Florence Grimes

Florence Grimes, Gabriel’s sister and the only person who will stand up to him. She hates him and knows the secrets of his dissolute youth and his fall from grace even after he professed himself saved. In many ways, she is his conscience and his scourge.

Elizabeth Grimes

Elizabeth Grimes, perhaps the most complex character. She has no conflict with her faith. She is a true believer in the sense that she bears the cross of her past sin—John’s conception—as well as the burdens of her poverty, Blackness, and hidden hatred of White people, a loathing brought on by her lover’s suicide. Richard, John’s real father, represented for her a choice between God and lust, a corruption to which she had gladly succumbed. The two leave the South, but before they can be married, yet after Elizabeth is pregnant with John, Richard is jailed for a crime he did not commit. After being acquitted, he cannot live with his understanding that as a Black man he is truly “invisible,” denied his humanity. He slashes his wrists, despite Elizabeth’s great love for him. After his death, Elizabeth is lonely, poor, and guilt-ridden; she turns to Gabriel, who promises to become a true father to John.

While the novel primarily focuses on John Grimes, three other characters — John's Aunt Florence, his stepfather Gabriel, and his mother Elizabeth — embody different types of conflict.

Part One, titled "The Seventh Day," delves into John's fundamental struggles as he attempts to forge his own identity. He makes significant efforts to embrace his stepfather's strict religious doctrines, hoping to gain his stepfather's approval in the process. John also grapples with his emerging sexuality, torn between the allure of sexual pleasure and the guilt such thoughts provoke. Additionally, he confronts his own racial prejudices, specifically his animosity towards Whites. As John becomes more cognizant of the world beyond Harlem — that alluring White world seemingly out of reach — he realizes he resents those who have restricted him to Harlem, and he feels guilty for harboring such hatred.

Part Two, "The Prayers of the Saints," shifts focus to the three pivotal figures in John's life. Each character prays for John's salvation, with flashbacks during their prayers revealing crucial aspects of their pasts. Aunt Florence's prayer addresses her frustration with her subordinate role in a patriarchal family and the self-loathing imposed on her by White society. Florence bleaches her skin and straightens her hair in a desperate attempt to appear White, despising everything Black, including her husband Frank, who believed "that black's a mighty pretty color." Ultimately, Florence ends up alone, having driven Frank away and isolated herself from her brother. Her prayer highlights that her religion has failed to provide her with genuine solace or a sense of self-worth, leaving her feeling abandoned by God.

Gabriel Grimes reflects on twenty years of internal conflict between physical desires and spiritual beliefs. He recalls his own conversion and the development of his fundamentalist views, largely in opposition to the complacent religion of his New Orleans elders. Gabriel's life includes an ill-fated marriage to "a holy fool" and an affair with Esther, which resulted in a son who later died. He reflects on his emotions when marrying Elizabeth, his love for her, and his aspirations to create a nurturing family environment for her son John. However, Gabriel also acknowledges how these intentions have unraveled. His life remains turbulent, and both he and John have struggled to love each other, plagued by feelings of inadequacy that make each feel unworthy of the other's affection.

Elizabeth reflects on what love has meant in her life. Her initial relationship with Richard, John's father, caused her to abandon her family. Richard's suicide, which was triggered by the humiliation he suffered at the hands of White policemen, left her both pregnant and nearly destitute. Her marriage to Gabriel has resulted in deep dissatisfaction and a sense of hopelessness about any chance for improvement. She views her life as chaotic and entrusts everything to God, believing only He can restore order.

Part Three, titled "The Threshing Floor," details John's conversion, driven by his feelings of guilt, familial pressure, and personal insecurity. John exits the Temple of the Fire Baptized at dawn with newfound confidence about his future, yet nothing substantial has changed. By the novel's end, John's ultimate destiny remains uncertain.

Elisha

At seventeen, Elisha has just moved to Harlem from Georgia. He is the nephew of the pastor at the Temple of the Fire of the Baptized. Elisha was publicly reprimanded in front of the congregation for "walking disorderly" with Ella Mae Washington, which meant they had been unsupervised and might have succumbed to temptation and had sex.

John is captivated by Elisha. During Sunday school, "John stared at Elisha all during the lesson, admiring the timbre of Elisha's voice, much deeper and manlier than his own, admiring the leanness, and grace, and darkness of Elisha in his Sunday suit, and wondering if he would ever be holy as Elisha was holy." While preparing the church for the Saturday evening tarry meeting, John and Elisha wrestle: He saw the veins rise on Elisha's forehead and in his neck...and John, watching these manifestations of his power, became wild with delight."

John's spiritual awakening follows Elisha's, both in manner and timing, raising the question of whether it is a genuine religious experience or merely an imitation. At the novel's conclusion, Elisha kisses John on the forehead and says, "Run on, little brother. Don't you get weary. God won't forget you. You won't forget."

Elizabeth

Early in the novel, as the Grimes family goes about their Saturday morning chores, Elizabeth, the mother, seems to justify her husband's brutality, explaining to her children that Gabriel works hard to provide for them. She is compassionate toward John; she is the only one in the family to remember his birthday, and she tries to divert the family's attention with prayer when, after Gabriel has slapped her, Roy curses his father and tells him to leave her alone. The reasons for her submissiveness are revealed much later in the novel.

Like the other characters, Elizabeth had a tough childhood. Her mother, a cold woman whom Elizabeth did not love, died when she was young. Her aunt, who considered Elizabeth snobbish, took her in to prevent her from being raised by her father, who ran a house of prostitution. Elizabeth was heartbroken because she loved her father dearly. At eighteen, she met Richard at the local store and fell in love with him. When he moved to New York, she followed, but to maintain her reputation, she lived with a "respectable" relative of her aunt, who was actually a spiritualist conducting seances on Saturday nights. Elizabeth and Richard worked at the same hotel and planned to marry once he had saved enough money. Tragically, Richard took his own life before Elizabeth could tell him about her pregnancy.

After giving birth to her baby, she retreated from social life, feeling despondent that her child, John, would grow up without a father figure. At her workplace, she met Florence, who introduced her to Gabriel. Gabriel showed interest in her son and, when he proposed to Elizabeth, he assured her he would "love John just like my own," a promise he clearly broke by favoring Roy.

Ella Mae

Ella Mae, the granddaughter of Praying Mother Washington, was called before the congregation early in the novel for spending time with Elisha without a chaperone. After John's spiritual transformation, Ella Mae is notably absent: "She had a bad cold, said Praying Mother Washington, and needed to have her rest."

Florence

Florence harbors two secrets in the novel. First, she is terminally ill, which explains her sudden interest in attending church, much to John's surprise. Second, she possesses a letter from Gabriel's first wife, sent thirty years earlier, revealing that Gabriel fathered a child out of wedlock with a local girl. "For she had always thought of this letter as an instrument in her hands which could be used to complete her brother's destruction. When he was completely cast down she would prevent him from ever rising again by holding before him the evidence of his blood-guilt."

At the novel's end, the day Gabriel is "completely cast down" coincides with his stepson John's entry into the religious community. The letter is from Deborah, a childhood friend from a neighboring farm. Both Florence and Deborah had traumatic experiences that fueled their anger and frustration: Deborah was gang-raped by White men and ostracized by the Black community, while Florence was deprived of education, new clothes, and hearty meals because her mother prioritized Gabriel's needs over hers. Florence left home at twenty-six, and Deborah eventually married Gabriel.

Florence moved to Harlem, where she met Frank, a kind but financially irresponsible man. Florence dreamed of owning a home, but Frank squandered his earnings on frivolous gifts and drinking with friends. Their last encounter ended in an argument, with Frank saying, "All right, baby. I guess you don't never want to see me no more, not a miserable, black sinner like me." He left and never returned. Years later, Florence learned from the woman he had most recently lived with that Frank had died in France during World War I.

Frank

Florence's husband, Frank, was a kind-hearted yet weak man who frequently squandered money instead of saving it. He often invited his drunken friends over and repeatedly apologized to Florence. One day, during a heated argument, he walked out. Florence expected him to return that night or the next morning, but he never came back. She later learned from the woman he had lived with for several years that he had died in France during the war.

Gabriel

John's father, Gabriel, is a deacon at the local church in Harlem. He enjoyed a successful career as a preacher in his youth but began life as a troubled boy, breaking church laws by drinking, gambling, and engaging in sexual activities. Gabriel's mother was strict, attempting to correct his behavior with spankings and imposing religious practices on him: "And, after the beating, with his pants still down around his knees and his face wet with tears and mucus, Gabriel was made to kneel down while his mother prayed."

His behavior remained unchanged until he was twenty-one. When his sister Florence left home, Gabriel was left to care for their aging, sick mother alone. Confronted by the silent vigilance of his once-fiery mother, he fervently prayed to God, asking to be guided away from his sinful ways and towards a religious life. One day, as he would often recount, his prayers were answered: "I opened my mouth to the Lord that day and Hell won't make me change my mind."

Shortly after this, he began preaching and quickly gained such a reputation that he was invited to be one of twenty-four preachers at a "monster revival meeting." Disheartened by the crude comments the older preachers made about a neighbor girl, Deborah, who had been gang-raped by Whites in her youth, Gabriel soon married her, believing this confirmed his religious sincerity. However, the marriage was unhappy, and when a coworker showed interest in him, he ended up having an affair with her. The relationship with Esther lasted nine days. Gabriel was unkind when ending it and even more heartless in refusing to help when she revealed she was pregnant. "She put out her hands to reach him, but he moved away"—this gesture of rejection and denial ensnared his life in a web of deceit that destroyed his early promise as a preacher. Esther died during childbirth, naming the baby Royal to spite Gabriel, who had always wanted a son named Royal "because the line of the faithful is a Royal line." The child was raised by his grandparents and died in a knife fight in Chicago, never knowing Gabriel was his father. After Deborah passed away, Gabriel moved to Harlem. At the novel's outset, he is married to Elizabeth and raising John, her son from a previous relationship; Roy, the new Royal, who Gabriel hopes will start his Royal line but who drinks and fights as Gabriel did in his youth; and two daughters, Sarah and Ruth.

Deborah Grimes

Deborah grew up as a neighbor to Gabriel and Florence. When they were young, a gang of White men raped Deborah, and when her father confronted them, they beat him and left him for dead. Deborah and Florence were friends during their childhood, and when Florence moved North, Deborah became close to Rachel, Florence's mother. Eventually, Gabriel married Deborah, but their marriage was cold: she rarely spoke to him, possibly out of awe for his religious authority, and he was secretive about his emotions. When Gabriel wept upon learning that his son Royal had been killed, Deborah confessed that she had always known about this son and would have been willing to raise him as her own if Gabriel had asked.

John Grimes

At the start of the novel, one of John's first thoughts upon waking is that "it was his fourteenth birthday and that he has sinned." The specific sin he refers to seems to be a mix of homosexuality and masturbation, as he had "sinned with his hands" in the school bathroom, "thinking of the boys, older, bigger, braver, who made bets with each other as to whose urine could arch higher." However, it quickly becomes evident that John feels like a sinner no matter what he does. His stepfather, a Deacon at the Temple of the Fire Baptized, has consistently abused John both physically and verbally, favoring John's younger brother Roy.

Gabriel Grimes married John's mother when John was still young, and John remains unaware that he and Roy have different fathers. Due to the abuse he endures, John harbors an intense hatred towards his stepfather: "He lived for the day his father would be dying and he, John, would curse him on his deathbed." Despite Gabriel's efforts to destroy his self-worth, John secretly believes he is destined for something greater. Although he is shy and awkward, he senses that he possesses a unique power that others lack, a power that could save him and perhaps one day earn him the love he desperately desires.

When John thinks his family has forgotten his birthday, he bitterly convinces himself that it's okay, that it has happened before, and that he deserves no better. However, his mother gives him money to buy a present, and he feels grateful to her. He goes to a movie in Times Square and unexpectedly finds himself empathizing with the villainess, a "violent and unhappy woman," because "nothing tamed or broke her, nothing touched her, neither kindness, nor scorn, nor hatred, nor love."

The one person John respects and admires in the book is Elisha, a slightly older boy from the church. They share a tender, playful camaraderie while setting up for the Saturday evening service, and they even wrestle. In the novel's climax in Part Three, John's spirituality is validated to the church members when he collapses on the "threshing-floor" in a state of religious ecstasy, flailing and speaking in unknown tongues. The church elders (Sister McCandless, Sister Price, and Praying Mother Washington) are thrilled that he has "got religion," and Elisha takes on the role of a "little brother" to John.

John's stepfather is reluctant to accept John's spiritual transformation. He remarks that "it ain't all in the singing and the shouting—the way of holiness is a hard way," highlighting his own struggles to live a virtuous life. John himself doubts the permanence and significance of his religious experience, but he appreciates the social standing it brings him and the connection it creates with Elisha.

Rachel Grimes

Rachel is the mother of Gabriel and Florence. She was enslaved prior to the Civil War.

Roy Grimes

Roy, John's younger half-brother, is actually the second son named Royal that Gabriel has fathered. The first Royal died in a knife fight before Gabriel moved to New York and married Elizabeth. Gabriel favors Roy as his only son, despite seeing himself as a devout man and Roy being rebellious—skipping Sunday school, arguing with his mother, and roaming the streets with a gang.

On the Saturday in 1935 when the novel is set, Roy returns home with a knife wound on his face from a fight. Unable to accept Roy's unruly behavior, Gabriel redirects his frustration towards the obedient, churchgoing John, suggesting he should learn from the incident. When Elizabeth reminds Gabriel of the first Royal's fate, warning him to discipline Roy "before somebody puts another knife in him and puts him in his grave," Gabriel slaps her. Roy then boldly confronts Gabriel, saying, "You slap her again, you black bastard, and I swear to God I'll kill you."

Sister McCandless

Sister McCandless is one of the women who attends the tarry services on Saturday nights at the Temple of the Fire Baptized.

Esther McDonald

Gabriel had renounced sin and married Deborah when he met Esther. Their affair lasted only nine days before he ended it, but Esther later informed him she was pregnant. Gabriel refused to leave Deborah and marry her, but Esther chose not to blackmail him by revealing her pregnancy. Displaying a religious conviction that Gabriel's preaching never instilled in her, she said, "I shamed before my God—to make somebody make me cheap, like you done." She moved North with the money Gabriel provided and died giving birth to Royal.

Royal McDonald

Gabriel's eldest son, Royal, was brought up by his grandparents in the same town where Gabriel resided, but Royal never discovered his father's identity. Deborah became friends with Royal's guardians and provided Gabriel with occasional updates about the boy's life. The last time Gabriel encountered Royal, a racial incident had erupted in town, and White men were on the prowl for any Black man to target. Gabriel considered revealing himself but, fearing confrontation, only managed a feeble warning to Royal before quickly leaving. Two years later, news arrived that Royal had been killed in a knife fight in Chicago.

Sister Price

One of the women who attends tarry services on Saturday nights at the Temple of the Fire Baptized.

Richard

Richard was John's father and Elizabeth's true love. Elizabeth had relocated to New York to be with him, and they intended to marry. However, one night after he had dropped her off at her doorstep, Richard was waiting on the subway platform when he was arrested. Three Black robbers fleeing the police had passed by him, and the police mistakenly believed he was involved. Richard was detained and tortured to extract a confession. He was eventually released due to lack of evidence, but on the night of his release, he tragically slit his wrists, never knowing that Elizabeth was pregnant.

Praying Mother Washington

One of the women who attends tarry services on Saturday nights at the Temple of the Fire Baptized.

Madame Williams

Elizabeth's aunt, with whom she lived when she moved to Harlem. Madame Williams is a spiritualist who holds seances in her apartment on Saturday nights.