A Thanksgiving dinner brings a lot of family at a Harlem flat, at which a 24-year-old school teacher named Dorothy Gale (Diana Ross) resides with her Aunt Em (Theresa Merritt) and Uncle Henry (Stanley Greene). Acutely introverted, she has, as Aunt Em teases her, and"never been south of 125th Street", also refuses to proceed and on with her own life.