In 1973, nine-year-old Troy Carmichael (Zelda Harris) and her brothers Clinton (Carlton Williams), Wendell (Sharif Rashed), Nate (Chris Knowings), and Joseph (Tse-Mach Washington) live in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The children live with their parents, Woody (Delroy Lindo), a struggling musician, and Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), a schoolteacher.