One of the protagonist’s first observations as he sits in the movie theater is that he wishes he were in the South, where he could freely ask those around him to share their food and drinks with him. Instead, he finds himself in a foreign culture that does not offer the sense of community or economic opportunities that he had hoped for.

Like many African Americans of his era, the protagonist has moved from the South, specifically from Rocky Mont, North Carolina, in search of better circumstances in the North. This mass exodus from the South is known as the Great Migration. From 1916 to the 1970s, African Americans from the rural South migrated to urban centers in the northeast and Midwest. People from close-knit communities that contained generations of families and neighbors found themselves in unfamiliar circumstances with people from different states and cities, not to mention the local Black populations that had established themselves in the first wave of the migration.

The dislocation made for a somewhat fragmented culture. The presence of friends or family in the destination location made the transition easier.

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