Down in the Delta

Down in the Delta is a 1998 American-Canadian drama film, directed by Maya Angelou and starring Alfre Woodard, Al Freeman, Jr., Esther Rolle (in her final film appearance before her death), Loretta Devine, and Wesley Snipes. Plot Rosa Lynn Sinclair, an elderly woman, lives in a Chicago housing project with her daughter Loretta and her two grandchildren, four-year-old Tracy (who is autistic) and thirteen year-old Thomas. Disappointed in Loretta's life choices and afraid of the troubled circumstances surrounding her grandson Thomas, Rosa Lynn decides to send her daughter and grandchildren to visit with her brother-in-law in Mississippi for the summer. Loretta, a drug addict, declines to go, especially since her uncle Earl lives in the dry and rural part of the Mississippi Delta, and already juggles his business and a wife, Annie, who has Alzheimer's disease and is cared for by a housekeeper. Before they depart, Rosa Lynn pawns a silver candelabra, a family heirloom they refer to as "Nathan," the name of their slave ancestor. Exiting the pawn shop, Rosa Lynn throws the pawn ticket into a streetside trashcan, hoping that her daughter will value the family relic enough to pick it up and redeem it before the candelabra becomes the property of the pawn shop. Loretta picks the ticket up out of the trashcan, hoping to redeem Nathan later.