Luella is one of the point-of-view characters and a protagonist in Happy Land. At the start of the novel, she is 20 years old. In her timeline, it is the year 1870, and she has recently been freed from enslavement along with her Papa. She is Nikki’s great-great-great-grandmother, with her narration supplementing the information that Nikki uncovers while researching her ancestry.

Initially, Luella settles on land in South Carolina near her old plantation with several other families. However, because of their fear of the government and the KKK, they all move together into the hills of North Carolina, where they found the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Soon after, Luella marries William Montgomery, becoming the first queen of the kingdom.

Central to Luella’s characterization is her dedication to the kingdom. She stays with William despite his abusive nature, then lives with his brother, Robert, to continue being queen, working with him to help their community. She creates a liniment to sell to bring in more money, while organizing a school, getting the women of the community representation on the council, and working closely with Robert to govern the kingdom.

Additionally, Luella is defined by her resilience. Throughout the novel, she suffers in her relationships with both William and Robert, who each abandon her in turn. She also loses her father and has a miscarriage, yet remains dedicated to ruling the kingdom despite her hardship. After her son, Wade, is arrested, she works tirelessly to raise the money to buy back the kingdom land, which they used as collateral to hire a lawyer for him.

Despite all of the hardship that Luella endures, she becomes an exemplary woman, defying the racism and sexism of her era by becoming a ruler and a Black landowner, passing her legacy down to Nikki. Luella remains dedicated to her family and her kingdom, refusing to allow society or her hardships to define who she is.

Mother Rita is Nikki’s grandmother and Lorelle’s (Mama’s) mother. She is 78 years old at the start of the novel, and dies of cancer at the novel’s end. She is responsible for the novel’s inciting incident, as she calls Nikki to come to North Carolina and help her—without revealing what she needs. She is defined by her stubbornness and her hard-working nature, refusing to fix her relationship with her daughter for over eight years and often treating Nikki coldly when she tries to get information from her. She works in her enormous garden each day, creating bouquets of flowers to sell in town, even in her old age.

Mother Rita is a primary component of Nikki’s change throughout the novel. She herself is a static character, remaining insistent that her ancestry is important and refusing to give in or give up her land. She creates space for Nikki to do research about her own family, allowing Nikki to begin to understand the importance of her lineage and ancestry. Although Mother Rita dies at the end of the novel, she does so knowing that her land will be left to Nikki to carry on her family’s legacy.

Lorelle, usually called Mama, is Nikki’s mother and the daughter of Mother Rita. At the age of 18, she moved to Washington, DC, wanting to explore the world outside of her mother’s small community. She worked for years in a government job, something that Nikki respects her for as she has always worked hard to succeed. She has spent the last eight years feuding with Mother Rita, as her mother blames her for the fact that Mother Rita is going to lose her land. Although the women reconcile at the novel’s end, they do so while still maintaining that they were right, reflecting the stubbornness of both women.

Mother Rita and Mama serves as foils to each other in the text. While Mother Rita takes pride in her land and ancestry, Mama does whatever she can to distance herself from it, refusing to believe in the stories of the kingdom or to value her history. At the novel’s end, however, she changes, helping Nikki to organize a presentation on the kingdom and to properly mark the graves in their ancestral cemetery. Although she still maintains her distance from the family history, she puts aside her stubbornness to reconcile with her mother and support her daughter.

Robert is Luella’s second husband and William’s younger brother. Throughout the first part of the text, he is portrayed as quiet and supportive, defaulting to his older brother as the kingdom is established. However, after William is injured and leaves the kingdom, Robert steps in as king. He is kind and compassionate toward Luella, serving as a foil to William’s anger and violence. Unlike William, who ruled the kingdom successfully on his own, he relies heavily on Luella and the women in the community to help the kingdom prosper.

Central to Robert’s character is the conflict that he has with his brother. When William returns, despite Luella’s insistence that their relationship is now platonic, Robert becomes convinced that something romantic is going on between William and Luella. He angrily leaves her, abandoning her and his two children for 10 years. When he returns, he earns redemption, supporting Luella as she struggles to fight their son, Wade’s, persecution by the police.