Milkman Dead

Actually named Macon Dead III, he acquires the nickname Milkman from Freddie, the janitor who discovers Ruth Dead nursing Milkman when the boy is more than halfway to adolescence. Milkman is the son of Ruth and Macon Dead, a pair of wealthy, prominent blacks in a Michigan town around the middle of the twentieth century. Eventually, he becomes Hagar's lover. His drive to recover his family history leads him to Virginia, where he learns the legend of Solomon. Milkman's best friend, Guitar, is a member of the Seven Days.

Macon Dead

Actually Macon Dead II, the son of the first Macon Dead (also called Jake), and Sing. Ruth's husband, father to Milkman, Magdalena, and First Corinthians. Macon is estranged from his sister, Pilate. A hard-nosed businessman, Macon believes that money and independence are the only ways to become truly free.

Pilate Dead

Daughter of Jake and Sing, sister to Macon Dead, mother to Reba, and grandmother to Hagar. Lives in the poor black area of town, where she sells wine with her daughter and granddaughter. A lyrical, malleable character, Pilate sings frequently, impelled to do so by what she believes was a command from her father's ghost.

Ruth Dead

Milkman's mother, Macon Dead's wife. Ruth's father, Doctor Foster, was one of the most prominent black citizens of the town; the street she lives on, Not Doctor Street, is named for him. Ruth's love for her father may have been more than daughterly: after Doctor Foster's death, Macon claims to have found Ruth in bed with him, naked, and sucking on his dead fingers.

Doctor Foster

Ruth Dead's father. He was a prominent member of the black community, and even had a street named after him. Macon Dead claimed, however, that Ruth and Foster's relationship was partially incestuous. Ruth counter-claimed that Macon killed Foster.

First Corinthians Dead

 Milkman's sister, Ruth and Macon's daughter. Educated at Bryn Mawr and in France, Corinthians is too educated either to find work or to find a husband, so she makes red velvet rose petals with her sister Magdalena. She also works as a housekeeper for the poet Michael-Mary Graham, and has an affair with Porter, a member of the Seven Days.

Magdalena Dead

Milkman's sister, who bitterly attacks him for telling Macon about First Corinthians's affair with Porter. Lena spends her time making velvet rose petals with Corinthians.

Guitar

 A young black man from the South, raised by his grandmother in Michigan. Milkman's best friend, and a member of the Seven Days who kills for love of his race.

Hagar

 Pilate's granddaughter, who becomes Milkman's lover. After he rejects her, she loses her mind and tries to murder him. She dies toward the end of the novel of a fever that symbolizes and seems to stem from her broken heart.

Reba

 Pilate's daughter and Hagar's mother. Lives in the wine house with her mother and daughter.

Susan Byrd

 A descendent of the Bird family, she helps Milkman piece together his family history in Shalimar, Virginia.

Freddie

 A janitor and local gossip.

Porter

 A member of the Seven Days, also one of Macon Dead's tenants. He has an affair with First Corinthians Dead and moves into a house with her, probably relinquishing his membership in the Days to do so.

Robert Smith

The insurance agent who tries to fly from the roof of Mercy Hospital, wearing enormous blue silk wings, at the beginning of the novel. A member of the Seven Days.

Empire State

A slow-witted member of the Seven Days who hangs out at the barbershop, and with whom Guitar becomes close.

Hospital Tommy

 A member of the Seven Days who hangs out at the barbershop.

Railroad Tommy

 A member of the Seven Days who hangs out at the barbershop.

Nero

A member of the Seven Days who hangs out at the barbershop.

b

 A young mental patient who often escapes from the asylum. Milkman and Guitar think that she may be responsible for the string of serial murders that others, understandably, think were perpetrated by Hagar.

Solomon

Milkman's great-grandfather, a slave who supposedly flew back to Africa, leaving his wife Ryna behind.

Ryna

 Solomon's wife, Milkman's great-grandmother, who was devastated after Solomon flew back to Africa.

Jake

 The youngest of Solomon and Ryna's twenty-one children, and Milkman's grandfather. He had his name changed to Macon Dead by a drunken Yankee army officer at the Freedman's Bureau.

Singing Bird

Jake's part-Indian wife, Milkman's grandmother.

Heddy

Sing's mother, a Virginia Indian who tells the story of Solomon to Susan Byrd's father.

Circe

 An ancient woman whom Milkman meets in the Butlers' ruined house in Pennsylvania. Circe was the midwife who birthed Macon Dead and Pilate, and who took care of them briefly after their father was killed. Now she lives alone amid a mass of Weimeraner dogs.

Michael-Mary Graham

A prominent poet for whom Corinthians serves as housekeeper.

Sweet

 A prostitute with whom Milkman has a dalliance in Virginia.