The novel opens with the line, “I was born a colored man and don’t you forget it. But I lived as a colored woman for seventeen years” (7). The narrator is Henry Shackleford. Henry’s mother died giving birth to him. He gives the story of his father, who was a slave owned by a man named Dutch Henry. Henry’s father was a committed Christian and a preacher. He cuts hair to make extra money and preach to the people he serves.

While cutting a man’s hair in a saloon, the man reveals himself to be the legendary bandit and killer John Brown. Dutch arrives while Brown and Henry’s father are quoting scriptures to each other. After Dutch accuses Brown of being an anti-slavery northerner, the two men engage in a gunfight, in which Henry’s father is killed. Brown believes that young Henry is a girl, because Henry is dressed in a potato sack, as was customary for most of the slaves. He also thinks that he heard Henry’s father call him Henrietta. Brown takes Henry with him as he flees from Dutch, who has been wounded in the fight.