The book opens with a Back to Africa rally. The "Reverend" Deke O'Malley collects $1000 per family from 87 families who hope to move from Harlem (its slum aspects are emphasized in the first chapter) to Africa on O'Malley's shipping line. Before O'Malley can exit with the $87,000 he is robbed by a group of white men speaking Southern American English. By the time the ensuing car/truck chase ends, the thieves are gone with the money, three African-American men are dead, and a mysterious bundle of cotton has landed on a street in Harlem. The Reverend O'Malley, actually an ex-con named Deke O'Hara, goes into hiding and detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson must find him. A strange, not so "benevolent" white Colonel from the South turns up with several assistants to start a "Back-to-the-Southland" movement. Many of these people are looking for the mysterious bale of cotton, which was picked up and re-sold by an ancient junk man named Uncle Bud.