Newly arrived in Harlem in the spring of 1920, Mattie Mae is one of the millions of African Americans who formed the Great Migration fleeing southern racial violence and escaping to the north. Mattie’s new black female employer introduces Mattie to a world of insights and opportunities she could never have possibly dreamt of, and she is on her way to becoming a bold new woman of the world.

Mattie Mae is an amalgam of the experiences of so many women from the South who made the trek to Harlem. Mattie Mae has recently moved to Harlem from South Carolina and works as a maid. When she takes a job at the home of Toot, a nightclub performer, she enters a world she never could have imagined.

Written by Cassandra Medley

Performed by Pernell Walker