Charles Thomas Tester is the story’s protagonist. He is a small-time hustler who dresses as a down-and-out musician and carries a guitar case, which is sometimes empty, in order to garner sympathy from passersby. He is 20 years old and lives in an apartment in Harlem with his disabled father, Otis Tester. Naming is an important theme in Tommy’s personal narrative, and Part 1 refers to him as Charles, Tommy, Tester, and Tommy Tester. In Part 2, which comes from the white Detective Malone’s point of view, Tommy is simply “the Negro.” This stark contrast in naming represents how society defines Tommy only by race and without an individual identity. By the end of the story, Tommy has internalized his alienation and renames himself “Black Tom,” signifying that he too identifies himself by his race. Black Tom is more than a persona. At the end of the novella when Detective Malone calls him Charles Thomas Tester, Black Tom tells him that his birth name “died with my daddy” (104-05).

The beginning of the story describes Tommy as a dutiful son. He hustles to support himself and his father, and whenever Tommy receives pay for a job, he calculates how much the money will cover in food and rent.