Jack Kelly

Jack is 17 years old. He has "no folks anywhere." (Santa Fe: Prologue) Jack Kelly, born Francis Sullivan, is a Manhattan newsie (newsboy), considered to be one of the best of his generation.

Before the story begins, Jack was taken to the Refuge for stealing food and clothing. His three-month sentence was extender to six after he protested the amount of food they were given and the conditions they were forced to bear. Crutchie Morris claims that Jack escaped the Refuge on the back of Teddy Roosevelt's carriage.

The story begins when it shows the everyday life of the newsboys in the first section, and how Davey and Les are on their first day of selling newspapers. Jack is impressed by Davey's intelligence and Les' cute appearance, and makes a deal with both of them and he claims they are able to sell about 1,000 each week. Later that evening, Jack invites Les and Davey to Medda's Theater (Irving Hall) after escaping from Warden Snyder, and later Davey invites Jack to his family's tenement, where Jack meets his crush, Sarah, who is Davey's sister. After Jack leaves, he sings the iconic newsies song "Santa Fe" about his dream to someday travel there, before returning to the Newsboys Lodging House.

The next day, Jack calls up a strike after being angered at the raise of the price per newspaper. He is able to gather all the newsies in New York City from all the boroughs, and they begin. Along the way, they meet Bryan Denton, a writer for The New York Sun, who pays for their lunch and writes about the strike.

Later in the movie, a rally is held at Medda's theater, but law enforcement was called to deal with Jack, who was an "escaped criminal". Jack ends up back in the refuge for the first night after meeting with Joseph Pulitzer, owner of The New York World. Davey tries to help Jack escape on the way to the refuge, but instead Jack declines.

Jack ends up working for Pulitzer the next day, wearing an outfit picked by Pulitzer. The newsies are angered by this, especially Davey, and take this as a betrayal when they find out. Jack breaks character in an alleyway after witnessing Davey, Sarah, and Les being beaten by the Delancey brothers. He saves them all, and end up going back to Denton (while he was packing since he was reassigned to a new job). Davey insists that Denton had something else to do, being an "Ace War Correspondent", but instead they write their own paper off an article Denton wrote on an old printing press found where Jack spends the night at the World building. After they produce the paper, they tell the newsies to give out the papers, with no charge, but only asking people to "read this". After Pulitzer finds out, he is angered and calls Jack to his office. When Jack is finished, he goes out to the crowd, first whispering in Les' ear that they won the strike. After that, he then announces the news to the whole crowd. Later that day, Jack rides with Teddy Roosevelt in his carriage when he comes to visit New York after hearing about the news, brought up to him by Denton, who previously wrote for him when Roosevelt served in the Spanish-American War in Cuba. Jack says he wants to stop at the trainyards to go to Santa Fe, but Roosevelt gives him advice that changes his mind where Jack ends up staying in New York. The advice was never revealed, but most likely that Jack had already made friends in New York he was going to leave behind. At the very end, Jack kisses Sarah, thus marks the end of the movie.