Restaurants Promote Racial Reconciliation

Several Jackson restaurants are taking part in an initiative to encourage better understanding and unity among different races and ethnicities in the city today and Thursday.

Mission Mississippi and Gov. Phil Bryant have teamed up to make October Racial Reconciliation Celebration Month in the state. The Two and Two Together Restaurant Days is part of that celebration. At participating restaurants, any group of two or more people of different races eating together will get 22 percent off their meal.

Jeff Good, co-owner of BRAVO!, Sal and Mookie’s, and Broad Street Bakery, and Lee Harper, co-owner of Koinonia Coffee House, joined with members of the Mission Mississippi and the governor’s office at the Jackson Convention Complex Tuesday morning to announce the initiative.

“Our hope is that people understand that anytime that we can sit down and try to know each other is a good thing,” Harper said. “We want our city to be a lot more unified, and we want our people to be able to do things beyond what we’re doing today.”

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Mission Mississippi President Neddie Winters said Racial Reconciliation Celebration month came about from the group trying to do just one more thing to make race relations in the state better.

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Along with the Two and Two Together initiative, Winters said Mission Mississippi encourages churches to hold worship service together. They are also asking people to simply come together with people of different races to have dialogue about each other’s differences.

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