Robert Smith, an insurance agent and Seven Days member, jumps from Mercy Hospital in a failed attempt to fly across Lake Superior. The next day, Ruth Dead gives birth to Milkman, the first Black baby born at the hospital. Macon Dead II's cold household and Pilate's haunting song are introduced.

Macon Dead II's cold household is detailed: his hatred of Ruth, his contempt for his tenants, his worldview of property as power. Milkman meets Pilate for the first time and is astonished by her freedom. Pilate's origin — born without a navel, receiving her name from her illiterate father — is revealed.

Milkman's friendship with Guitar Bains deepens. Guitar reveals his membership in the Seven Days — a secret society that kills one white person for every Black person killed by white violence. Milkman and Guitar plan to steal Pilate's supposed gold. Hagar's obsessive pursuit of Milkman begins.

Macon Dead II tells Milkman the story of his father's death and the cave where young Macon and Pilate hid with a white man's gold. Ruth's side of the story — her father, her marriage, her grief — is revealed through her own account. Milkman begins to understand that his parents are people with histories, not just forces of oppression.

Milkman travels to Danville, Pennsylvania — his grandfather Macon Dead I's hometown — ostensibly seeking gold. He meets old men who knew his grandfather and hears the story of Lincoln's Heaven, the farm that was taken. He begins to feel something he can't name: the pull of ancestry.

Milkman arrives in Shalimar, Virginia. He is stripped of his possessions and middle-class armor, has a bar fight, goes on a night hunt that becomes a spiritual ordeal, and begins to decode the children's song — 'Jake the only son of Solomon' — realizing it is his family's genealogy and the record of Solomon's mythic flight.

Milkman learns the full legend of Solomon: the flying African who left behind his wife Ryna and twenty-one children. Ryna's Gulch is named for Ryna's howling grief. Jake was dropped by Solomon mid-flight. Milkman understands what his grandfather's 'flight' cost the women left behind.

Pilate and Milkman return to Virginia to bury Jake's bones at Solomon's Leap. Guitar shoots Pilate — she dies in Milkman's arms, asking about a bird. Milkman leaps from the cliff toward Guitar. The novel ends at the moment of the leap — whether he flies or falls, Morrison does not say.