Delta Worth Her Attention example essay topic

The Colors of the Delta is a brief editorial by Rheta Johnson that portrays a side of the Delta most outsiders never see. Through this editorial Johnson brings to life a poor and ill fated Delta society. She causes the reader to see beyond a Delta that is so often forgotten and written off by the rest of the southern world as a place unworthy of attention and lacking culture. Throughout her editorial, Johnson presents the Delta as a place that is worthy of more positive attention than is ever given. More often than not New Orleans, Birmingham, or Vicksburg is favored over the Delta as a great place to visit while in the South". But today the forsaken corn is a sad sight beside the green soybeans in huge fields the farmers deem worth irrigating.

It's like when one child is favored over another". With these sentences Johnson likens the Delta to the corn crop that has been sadly forgotten. The green soybeans represent the rest of the southern world that is often seen as more southern and genteel than the Delta. She brings forth the fact the Delta has often been used a backdrop for countless political leaders to announce their campaign on poverty.

However, Johnson wants her readers to see beyond the poverty that looms over the Delta like a thick fog. Through her editorial Johnson shows that there is so much more to the Delta than the material wealth that is lacking. Rheta points out that even the residents of the Delta did not realize the wealth they possessed until recently. For now, they know they have so much more to share with the world through their God given talents and abilities.

Such men like Son Thomas, who sang at the White House and in Delta mansions, have emerged from this little forgotten place in the South. If Birney Imes had never had the Delta for inspiration, he may not have become the photographer he is today. People like Birney and Son knew that the Delta was worthy of the world's full attention. Because of the attention that they payed to the Delta through their music and photography, the rest of the world's eyes are opened to the "Colors of the Delta". Not only does Johnson present the fact that Delta is overdue on attention, she continually brings forth the fact that the Delta is immensely rich in cultural treasures. She writes, "But there is an undeniable cultural richness too, a real trove of color and talent".

Johnson talks of a newspaper bureau downtown where "any reporter worth her weight didn't sit in the office long anyway". Any reporter "worth her weight" knew that there was much in the Delta worth her attention that she need not sit in the bureau long. John Odis, another man Johnson mentions, was virtually unknown, but he is yet another band of color that makes up the rainbow of The Colors of the Delta. He meant so much to the people in the town that he lived in that they took up a collection when he died to pay for a plot to bury him in.

The virtually unknown hang outs and people of the Delta are what make the Delta so special. Places like Doe's Eat Place where you can "Buy a coffee can full of hot tamales", and juke joints on the highway near Swan Lake where "Musicians who " ll never make more than enough money to pay their light bill had been singing their hearts out", are the places that make the Delta a trove of cultural treasures. With or without occasion "You could hear the blues any night of the week", on Greenville's Nelson Street. Music, food, and undeniable talent have emerged from this little niche in the South over the years. Just as, "The dead corn can be seen all across the parched Delta, stalks brittle as a banker's collar, brown as a peanut hull", so can the Delta be seen by the rest of the world. In her editorial Johnson acknowledges that most people see the Delta as a poverty stricken place where "The great economic divide runs through this topsoil like a plow", but she shows the side of the Delta that she came to love while living there.

She opens her reader's eyes to the brilliant, rich, and attention grabbing "Colors of the Delta.".