Lutie Johnson

Lutie is a young, single parent living in Harlem, New York on 116th Street in the late 1940s. She is trying her best to beat the odds and make a better life for herself and her son. She desperately wants to get the two of them out of the poverty and violence in which they live. She believes that with hard work and careful planning The Street will not beat them the way it has beaten so many others of her race.

Lutie works as a civil servant clerk. It took her a lot of studying and hard work to get the job, but she defied the odds and managed to do something other than perform menial labor for white people. Lutie's job in Connecticut played a large part in her drive to succeed. While working for the Chandler family she came to believe that if you...