Go Tell it on the Mountain begins in 1935 on the 14th birthday of John Grimes. John is a young African American teenager who lives with his family in Harlem, New York City. John’s father Gabriel is the head deacon in a Pentecostal church named the Temple of the Fire Baptized. Gabriel abuses John’s mother Elizabeth as well as his younger siblings Roy, Sarah, and Ruth. However, John receives the worst of his father’s abuse.

John thinks about Harlem, and he describes the sinners he sees on the streets on his way to church. He thinks about Elisha, the young male leader of the church’s Sunday school. John admires Elisha but struggles to deal with his increasingly romantic feelings toward him. He watches Elisha during church services; Elisha, like many congregation members, is occasionally so overcome by his faith that he enters into a frenzied, trance-like dance before the altar. Elisha has been chastised by the pastor for spending too much time with a young girl named Ella Mae Washington. John thinks about the role of shame and guilt in religion and thinks about his own future with regards to the church.