It is Pittsburgh, 1969. Memphis Lee's diner—and the rest of his block—is scheduled to be torn down, a casualty of the city's renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community, but not its spirit. Memphis stands his ground, determined to make the city pay him what the property is worth, refusing to be swindled out of his land as he was years before in Mississippi. Into this fray come Sterling, the ex-con who embraces the tenets of Malcolm X; Wolf, the bookie who has learned to play by the white man's rules; Risa, a waitress of quiet dignity; and Holloway, resident philosopher and fervent believer in the prophecies of a legendary 322-year-old woman down the street.

Just as sure as an inexorable future looms right around the corner, these people of loud voices and big hearts continue to search, to falter, to hope that they can catch the train that will make the difference. With compassion, humor, and a superb sense of place and time, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of everyday lives in the shadow of great events, and of unsung men and women who are anything but ordinary.

The play is part of August Wilson's Century Cycle, his epic dramatization of the African American experience in the twentieth century.

This edition includes a foreword by Laurence Fishburne.