In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Marshall Ramsey sits down with Poké Stop owner and food lover Rachel Phuong Le. Rachel’s motto is “COOKING is my HOBBY. EATING is my SPORT. FOOD is my COMFORT. I am Food’s biggest fan.” Rachel, whose family relocated from Vietnam to Long Beach, California, moved to Mississippi and fell in love with its food and people.
That love led her to photographing food and creating new communities and places where foodies could meet and hang out. That eventually led to her restaurant Poké Stop, which is now located in Flowood, Mississippi. You’ll enjoy this high-energy episode that will leave you inspired and a little bit hungry.
Incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on Friday reported raising a whopping $958,000 in May for his reelection campaign.
The one-month haul dwarfs the $211,000 Hosemann had reported raising for January through April in his last report. His campaign at the time said that he had abided by the longstanding lawmakers’ honor system of not holding fundraisers during a legislative session, which ran from January through April 1 this year.
For scale, Hosemann’s nearly $958,000 for May outpaces the $650,000 incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves — a consummate fundraiser — raised for the month.
The deadline for filing campaign finance reports for May was Friday, but many had not yet been posted on the secretary of state’s website Friday afternoon, including Hosemann’s main primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel.
It has thus far been unclear exactly how much McDaniel has raised or has on hand for his campaign, because of confusing reports he has filed for his campaign and a PAC he ran. He reported that he returned his largest donation to-date, $465,000 from a dark-money group his PAC funneled to his campaign. Hosemann claims McDaniel violated state campaign finance laws and has a complaint pending with the attorney general. But Mississippi’s campaign finance laws are seldom enforced.
Hosemann’s largest contributions for the period were $50,000 from the Mississippi Bankers Association PAC and $30,000 from the Homebuilders Association of Mississippi PAC. Hosemann received large donations — from $20,000 to $25,000 each — from several state health care PACs, roadbuilders and manufacturers.
“These contributions allow us to travel the state, meet with Mississippians in every county, and share our successes over the past four years,” Hosemann said in a statement. “We’ve enacted the largest tax cut in the state’s history and the largest teacher pay raise in the state’s history, downsized state government and paid off more than $500 million in state debt. We are so grateful for the support, and encouraging endorsement of our conservative achievements and platform.”
Reeves reported in a press release Friday that his campaign has $9.4 million cash on hand, after launching a $1 million media campaign running May-June. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley in a press release Friday reported raising $355,000 for May and having $1.7 million in his campaign account.
CORINTH — In the back of the Alcorn County Correctional Facility, a regional prison in the top-right corner of Mississippi, is an ice-cold trailer.
It’s new. And it’s where Bill Stone — a retired Northeast Mississippi Community College instructor who, for the past three years, has taught a public speaking class at this prison — was headed early Wednesday afternoon.
To get there, he must go through a pat-down. A guard inspects his materials — folders, notebooks and seven copies of the textbook “Practically Speaking.” Then Stone must walk through the prison’s long, loud hallway, past his old classroom; past the canteen, the case managers’ offices and the guard; and past the living pods. Some of his students come to the glass or they shout hello, adding to the din. Finally, after a few steps on a sidewalk walled-off with a chain-link fence, Stone is inside the trailer.
Sometimes, Stone thinks it’s not unlike walking the halls of a high school.
On Wednesday, he had Michelle Baragona, NEMCC’s vice president of instruction, in tow. She’d driven 20 minutes from NEMCC’s main campus in Booneville. Since fall 2017,she has overseen NEMCC’s prison education programs, which are part of a growing movement in Mississippi and across the country. Boosted in part by research that has shown that prison education reduces recidivism, more colleges and universities are offering classes in prison.
Now, as the federal government is preparing to make federal financial aid once again available to incarcerated people starting July 1, these programs are primed to explode in partnership with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Key stakeholders are on board: In interviews, Burl Cain, the MDOC commissioner, has correctly linked the availability of jobs for formerly incarcerated people, which prison education can help them get, to reduced recidivism.
In the quiet, air-conditioned trailer, Stone was hoping his students could, just for an hour, find some reprieve from prison. Or at least, from their often sweltering hot living pods, which on Wednesday were burning up in the 84-degree heat. All 295 students at this facility can take classes, as long as they have a GED.
“This is much better than the old room,” Stone said. “By a long, long shot.”
He started arranging the desks into three rows.
Around 12:20 p.m., guards brought the students from each living zone until all the desks were filled. They waited quietly for class to start. Some were antsy, tapping their feet or twirling their pencils. One student from the work zone was running behind.
Five minutes later, class started. Stone introduced the assignment. Each student was to talk about three things that interested them. If they talked for more than one minute, they’d get an A.
“At the end, we all clap for them,” he told the class. “Even if they pass out.”
Stone was confident they wouldn’t, but in his 28 years of teaching public speaking, it had happened to two students — it’s always a possibility. So he’d tapped one student to start them off.
“Terrence, I asked you to go first,” Stone said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’m gonna be,” he replied.
Carlos White, left, watches as a fellow student gives his speech. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
There used to be hundreds of college classes just like Stone’s in prisons across the country. Up until the mid-1990s, these programs were considered a key part of doing time — an “opportunity for ‘reformation,’” according to Higher Education in Prison Research. But in 1994, the Crime Bill took away the primary source of funding, which was the Pell Grant, a federal financial aid program for low-income students, by barring incarcerated people from receiving it.
The classes all but disappeared. Now, they’re making a comeback. In Mississippi, colleges and universities across the state are working with MDOC, sheriffs and wardens to set up what are, for many prisons, the first accredited college classes that have been offered in decades. NEMCC had been supporting its programs with private funding, but the Pell Grant will be a game-changer.
This will benefit the whole community, Baragona said. Not only does prison education reduce crime, she said, but families of incarcerated people often move to Alcorn County. They want their loved ones to be able to support the family when they get out.
“We’re not teaching the people who are in there for life,” Baragona said. “These are people who are fixin’ to rejoin society.”
Since 2017, 77 students have taken NEMCC classes at Alcorn County Correctional. The participation rates reflect the institutions’ demographics, Baragona said. Black students made up 57% of participants, and 43% were white — a ratio that was mirrored in Stone’s class, where 7 students were Black and 4 were white.
More than half have taken three or more classes. Two students have taken five classes.
“I don’t want anybody thinking that this is a patsy,” Stone said. “I want these students to write as well, to speak as well as any Northeast student who has come through my traditional classes.”
He poised his finger over the iPad timer as Terrence Glover stepped up to the podium.
“Hello Terrence,” the students said in unison.
Glover talked about how he hates foreign languages (difficult to learn) and loves fishing. Then, 138 seconds later, his speech was over. It was time for the next student. Stone asked for a volunteer. No one moved.
“Anybody that just wants to get it over with right now?” Stone asked.
Carlos White rocked out of his chair. Though he had seemed shy at his desk, he was at ease at the podium. The first thing he was interested in, White said, was TikTok, because it offered access to “a multitude of people from a single device” — that is, to the outside world. He also liked cooking, because it reminded him of his grandmother’s collard greens. His final interest was mentoring. That’s what he wants to do when he gets out.
“So much of the youth go down the wrong road like I did,” he said.
White spoke for 139 seconds, Stone noted. A new record.
The students seemed less anxious and more comfortable sharing. For many, the topic of prison was unavoidable. Another, Vincent Breazeale, talked about the value of education, working and family — three interests, he said, that would “probably be different outside these walls.”
What everyone was really talking about were their dreams, and what they hoped to do when they finally left.One said he’d like to get a dog. Another couldn’t wait to work on cars again. A third student said wanted to start a business manufacturing cologne.
One of the last students to go, Antonio Harris, said that after 19 years of incarceration, he was looking forward to being an entrepreneur when he’s finally released (he’ll become eligible next year).
“I want to be able to work and still kind of like, enjoy life at the same time,” Harris said. “It generates great revenue also.”
By the end, the temperature in the class felt warmer. Stone congratulated the students. This was the first class he’s ever had, he said, where every student talked for more than a minute. He wanted to know how it felt.
“Like riding a bike,” Glover said.
A student named Bruce Parker passed out root-beer-float-flavored candies. He’d used $1.16 of his $20-a-week allowance to pay for a bag.
After a lecture from Stone, it was time for the students to talk to the “navigator.” That is Tina Wilburn. It’s her third day. She’s NEMCC’s eyes and ears in the prison, and it’s her job to advocate for the students. Gripping a prison-issued walkie talkie and a notebook, she wanted to know how they were going to do their homework.
“Are you able to study in the pod where you’re at?” she asked. She’d heard the library was too small.
All the students shook their heads. Dozens of incarcerated people live in each pod and sleep bunk-to-bunk. There’s a lot of distractions.
NEMCC has offered college prison classes at ACCF since fall 2017. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“It’s extremely difficult,” White said.
Despite everyone’s excitement that day, these students are up against tough odds. They’re unlikely to finish. Last semester, 10 students enrolled, and only two graduated. According to data from NEMCC, the completion rates were higher before COVID, when more career-readiness classes were offered.
Some of the reasons for this have to do with the very nature of prisons, said Ruth Delaney, a program director at the Vera Institute of Justice, a national organization that has been helping prisons set up college classes. For instance, it’s common for incarcerated people to be suddenly transferred for reasons that supersede the class, like a sentencing order that prohibits them from staying in the same prison as a co-defendant.
“A prison is a total institution,” Delaney said. “The minute you cross that threshold, all of your relationships start to feel different.”
If a fight broke out in a students’ living pod, they could be transferred, even if they weren’t participating, she added. That’s more likely to happen during the summer months, when violence in prison rises with the temperature outside. And while some research has shown prisons that have classes become safer over time, the students at Alcorn County Correctional said they had yet to see that happen.
But other reasons can be managed. A huge issue Stone has noticed is dental hygiene. When his incarcerated students’ have cavities, they’re sent to the Mississippi State Prison in Parchman to get teeth pulled.For weeks after, their mouths are too swollen for them to talk in class.
Then there are some students who get demoralized if they do poorly, even on a quiz that doesn’t matter for their final grade.
“It’ll just knock them for a loop, and I’m not used to that,” Stone said. “That’s a definite prison-type thing. A regular college student would go, ‘well, crap.’ They’d just keep on going. For a prison student to make a 40 or a 50, their whole self esteem is locked up in that.”
What makes the difference, Stone added, is support.
All of the students told Wilburn they would be able to finish their homework. Some of them offered tips: The best time to study is around 3 a.m. That’s when the prison is quietest.
The door to the trailer opened. It was a guard. He walked into the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. Everybody turned to look at him.
“I believe they said class is over now,” he said.
So it was.
A student goes back into the prison after class. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
NEMCC has big dreams for the program. Baragona wants to offer more career-technical programs — classes that are more likely to directly lead to jobs when students are no longer incarcerated. But she’s worried about the logistics of bringing equipment into the prison.
Another issue is giving students computers, which is crucial for learning how to do research. This isn’t possible because they’re not allowed free use of the internet. Stone makes up for that by bringing print-outs of research to class.
Baragona also wants there to be more instructors. Right now, Stone is one of two. Even though society is slowly leaving the tough-on-crime era behind, she still has to “sweet talk” instructors into participating in the program. She was able to convince Stone because, in the early 1980s, he used to minister to a congregant in prison.
And Baragona still hasn’t figured out an efficient way of providing accommodations for students who have disabilities like dyslexia. When the Pell Grant becomes available, she’ll need to set up a system for them to talk to NEMCC’s financial aid office. She’s hoping Wilburn can help with that.
Before class, Baragona asked Stone to tell her if he needed more equipment. A white board would be nice, he mused. Then he thought of something even better.
“A bigger TV would be glorious,” he said. “If someone had an extra 69-inch TV that would be just glorious.”
Dustin Dickerson connected for four home runs in five games in the Auburn Regional. Credit: Joe Harper/Southern Miss
HATTIESBURG – Southern Miss shortstop Dustin Dickerson, from nearby Laurel, hit two home runs in his first three seasons with the Golden Eagles.
At the Auburn Regional last weekend and Monday, Dickerson slammed four round-trippers, twice as many in one extended weekend as he had in three previous seasons. All totaled at Auburn, Dickerson hit safely eight times, including a triple and a double, in 22 at bats. He scored five runs and batted in 11 to help the Golden Eagles win four straight games to advance to the Super Regional this weekend against Tennessee in Hattiesburg. Little wonder he was selected the Regional’s most outstanding player.
Rick Cleveland
“Same swing I’ve always had,” Dickerson said, after the tournament. “I’m not doing anything differently.”
Perhaps not, but clearly there’s so much more power packed in Dickerson’s swing. Those weren’t wind-blown balls that just got over the fence at Auburn. No, he whacked a couple of tape-measure shots over Auburn’s green monster wall in left field and also hit another well over the 396-foot sign to straight-away centerfield.
Dickerson for three seasons had been a huge asset for the Golden Eagles, but mainly as a slick-fielding shortstop who could make all the plays. He batted ninth in the order for much of that time. He hit for average, but not for power. This season, he has hit .328 with 10 home runs, 20 doubles, and three triples. Moved up to the No. 2 hole in the batting order, he has driven in 50 runs.
“When I came here I weighed 155 pounds soaking wet,” Dickerson said smiling.
“Dustin was a twig,” is the way Southern Miss strength and conditioning coach Todd Makovicka put it.
He’s a sturdy oak now, having added 30 pounds to his physique. “All muscle,” Dickerson said. “Coach Mac has been really, really good for me.”
Dickerson still doesn’t look like a body builder. But his shoulders are much broader, his chest is thicker, and his upper legs are much more muscular. Said Makovicka of Dickerson, “He wasn’t born with it. He wasn’t naturally strong. He has had to work for it.”
Dustin Dickerson is congratulated by Scott Berry after the first of his two home runs last Saturday against Auburn.. Credit: Robert Greenough/Southern Miss athletics
Makovicka and his two graduate assistants have been invaluable to the entire Southern Miss program. Scott Berry, the head coach, swears by them. In fact, Berry will tell you that perhaps the best move of his 14 years as the head man was to raise $540,000 for a strength and conditioning building behind the third base stands at Pete Taylor Park in 2015.
“Just look at our records before and after,” Berry said. “There’s your proof.”
Let’s do just that. In 2010, Berry’s first season as head coach, the Eagles were 36-24. Their victory totals over the next five seasons were 39, 32, 30, 35 and 36.
In their first full year of the weight room, the Eagles won 41 games in 2016, followed by 50 in 2017, 44 in 2018, 40 in 2019, 40 in 2021, 47 in 2022 and 45 this season. They were 12-4 in the COVID season of 2020.
“That increase in victories is no accident,” Berry said. “We lifted before but we shared a weight room with every other athletic program on campus at the football facility. There were only certain times we could lift and sometimes the time we had wasn’t conducive to fitting in our baseball schedule. To me, getting our own weight room, at our ballpark, right next to our clubhouse, right behind our dugout, was the missing piece of the puzzle. I think it shows in our record.
“And its not just what it has done for us on the physical side,” said Berry, a long-time lifter himself. “There’s definitely a mental advantage to it, too. You put in the work, you see the results. You’re stronger physically, but you are also more confident mentally because you know how much stronger, more durable you are.”
Dickerson is Exhibit A. Balls that were Texas League singles two years ago, are gappers for doubles and triples now. Balls that were fly balls even a year ago are sailing far beyond the fences now. It’s not just at the plate. Dickerson has added pop on his throws from the hole at shortstop. The son of Philadelphia Phillies coach Bobby Dickerson, he always has possessed at Major League glove. He can make all the plays at shortstop.
The added muscle presumably will improve greatly his value in this summer’s Major League Draft. Dickerson has much more pressing matters that consume him currently. Southern Miss defeated LSU in its own Regional last year, then got blown out and shut out by eventual national champion Ole Miss is a Super Regional at Pete Taylor Park.
“We’re a year older,” Dickerson said. “We’ve been here before. We know what it takes. The moment is not going to be too big for us. We expected to win the Regional last week. We expect to win the Super Regional this week.”
The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Hickingbottom waited too late to appeal the state party kicking him off the ballot for the Aug. 8 primary.
Specially appointed Hinds County Circuit Judge Forrest Johnson Jr. late last month ruled the state Democratic Party improperly disqualified Hickingbottom, and that he should be placed on the ballot. The party appealed to the state’s high court, which released its decision Thursday.
Hickingbottom’s ouster leaves Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley as the lone candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. He is expected to face incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in the November general election.
The lower court had ruled that Hickingbottom met all requirements to run for office. That ruling noted that while Hickingbottom had waited too late to appeal his disqualification per state law, his right to run for office and the right of people to vote for him “prevails over his delay in seeking relief from this court.”
The state Democratic Party Executive Committee in February ruled that Hickingbottom and another little-known candidate, Gregory Wash, both failed to meet qualifications to run because they failed to file statements of economic interest with the state Ethics Commission. The lower court ruled this was not a disqualifying offense for candidacy.
But the high court said the law gave Hickingbottom 15 days to file an appeal of his disqualification, but he filed 75 days later. The court noted that Hickingbottom failed to provide any “excuse for his excessive untimeliness.”
The decision, written by Justice Robert Chamberlin, noted “we decline to address the other issues addressed by the (Democratic Executive Committee)” when it disqualified Hickingbottom.
The Supreme Court voted 8-0 on the decision, with Justice Kenneth Griffis not participating. The court made clear its decision is the final word on the appeal “in light of the impending ballot deadlines for the August 8, 2023 primary election.”
The ruling in the Hickingbottom case in some ways mirrors a decision from last week by the state Supreme Court in a Lowndes County case.
In that case, the Lowndes County School District had appealed a ruling of the supervisors who granted tax exemptions – equaling $3.4 million in school taxes — to an industry. A chancery judge sided with the school district.
But the supervisors appealed the chancery court decision to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found in favor of the supervisors saying the law provides only 10 days to appeal a decision of the supervisors and the notice of appeal had to be filed with the circuit court.
The school district, according to the Supreme Court decision, failed to file its appeal within 10 days and did not file the notice in the circuit court – both of which are mandated in state law.
“The (Lowndes County School) District failed to file a notice of appeal in the circuit court and it failed to do so within the 10 -day deadline, both of which are jurisdictional requirements,” Chief Justice Michael Randolph wrote for the majority. Seven of the nine justices joined the Randolph decision.
Shane Quick, a little-known candidate in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, withdrew from the statewide race earlier this week, according to state GOP officials and the Secretary of State’s office.
Tate Lewis, the director of the Mississippi Republican Party, and Elizabeth Jonson, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, told Mississippi Today that Quick sent a signed letter to party officials on Monday saying he wished to take his name off the GOP primary ballot, though he did not give a reason for ending his campaign.
Quick, who could not be reached for comment, also filed paperwork to terminate his campaign finance account that housed $101 in donations.
A DeSoto County resident, Quick stood little chance at capturing the Republican Party’s nomination for the office. He also ran for lieutenant governor in 2019 and only garnered around 14% of the primary vote. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann captured around 85% of the vote.
But the candidate’s exit from the Republican field is notable because of the potential for a GOP primary runoff this year.
State Sen. Chris McDaniel, a conservative from Jones County, and Tiffany Longino, another little-known candidate from Rankin County, are competing against Hosemann, who has held statewide office since 2008.
If neither of the three candidates captures an outright majority of the votes cast in the Aug. 8 primary, election officials must conduct a runoff on Aug. 29 between the two candidates who received the most votes.
The winner of the GOP primary will faced Ryan Grover, the only Democrat in the race, on Nov. 7.
Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has filed a resolution calling for censure of Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson for what Gaetz claims are violations of House Rules by the Jan. 6th Select Committee Thompson chaired.
Gaetz is calling for Thompson to be removed from the Homeland Security Committee, and “at a minimum” censured. Censure is a formal statement of disapproval that must be adopted by a majority of the House.
Thompson, then-chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, chaired the nine-member, bipartisan (although it only had two Republicans) select committee appointed to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack of the U.S. Capitol. The committee in December released its final report and recommended prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice and charges against former President Donald Trump of obstruction, fraud, conspiracy and inciting an insurrection.
Gaetz said a House Judiciary Committee investigation showed Thompson violated House rules by not turning over all the January 6th Committee records to the House clerk at the end of the 117th Congress in December.
“Thompson sent a letter to the Biden White House and the Department of Homeland Security in which he implied critical congressional records related to the work of the January 6th Committee would be improperly stored at the White House,” Gaetz said in a press release.
Thompson, in a statement Thursday, replied to Gaetz’ claims: “The Select Committee complied with the rules of the House, and I stand by its work. No one should be distracted by agents of chaos who would rather pull political stunts than protect the Capitol.”
According to numerous news reports, the January 6th Committee last year released interview transcripts from a Trump aide who testified Gaetz sought a preemptive presidential pardon relating to a federal child sex trafficking investigation. Trump and Gaetz have denied that he asked Trump for a pardon.
Even though federal judge Michael Mills has taken senior status, he says he still plans to be an active judge, though might take his band “on the road” when his replacement is finally named in the Northern District of Mississippi.
In theory, Mills would have more time with a band because of his decision to take what is known as senior status. Senior status for a federal judge normally equates to semi-retirement, or at least a reduced caseload. But Mills says he has continued to have essentially a full-time caseload, in part because of the delay in his replacement being confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Mills announced in 2021 his intention to take senior status, opening up a coveted post in the Northern District where President Joe Biden eventually nominated Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom. But Colom’s confirmation process in the U.S. Senate has been stalled by Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who has refused to approve Colom’s nomination. Under a sometimes-honored Senate tradition, the home state senator is allowed to block the nomination.
It is not clear whether Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, might advance the nomination despite Hyde-Smith’s objections. Colom’s nomination has been praised by diverse groups. Mississippi’s senior senator, Roger Wicker, a Tupelo Republican, has voiced support for Colom’s nomination.
Mills had no comment on Colom’s confirmation process. He did say that he wished his post was filled as well as the U.S. attorney’s spot for the Northern District.
Biden has not announced a nominee for U.S. attorney for the Northern District.
“I would like to see it filled, then I could slow down a little if I wanted to,” he said, adding if his replacement was confirmed, “I might take my band on the road.”
The 66-year-old federal judge, said of the band, “I am trying to stay young foolish and happy.”
Mills was joking, perhaps, about a band he helped form that includes politicians as well as professional musicians. The band performs on a sporadic basis, playing popular songs ranging from rock to country.
The group was created as part of “June Bug,” an annual event in June centered at least in part on June 3 – the day fictional character Billy Joe McAllister took his life by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge in the “Ode to Billy Joe” song that was written and sung by Mississippi native Bobbie Gentry.
The June Bug band Credit: Michael Mills
The June Bug recently held its annual event in Lafayette County where Mills now resides. Members of June Bug include Wicker as lead singer, and some professional musicians affiliated at least in part with the recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Will McFarlane from the Bonnie Raitt band is the lead guitarist while Mills is the rhythm guitarist. Billy Earheart of the Amazing Rhythm Aces plays piano.
Mills is a former state House member from Itawamba County and later served on the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Mills was nominated for the federal judiciary in 2001 by then-President George W. Bush. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate later that year.
Even when his replacement is named, Mills said he plans to remain active hearing cases in the Northern District even though he now has the title senior judge before his name.
It is not clear how Mills’ music might impact those plans.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation in restaurants in Washington, D.C., was unlawful.
Civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell had led that fight. Such discrimination had not always existed in the nation’s capital. In fact, Congress had passed laws in 1872 and 1873, barring restaurants and the like from refusing to serve any “well-behaved” customer, regardless of race. Those laws remained on the books, despite being ignored.
After the high court ruled in her favor, Terrell returned to the same restaurant that had turned her away, and she and her friends were served.
