Claudie is traveling from Harlem to Georgia with Mama and Cousin Sidney to meet her grandmother and cousins for the first time. She hopes that learning her family's story will inspire her for the variety show she's planning to raise money to save the boardinghouse her family lives in. Claudie's grandmother tells her a legend from slavery times called "The People Could Fly." In it, an old man whispers magic words, and the enslaved people grow wings...