Talk:Meridian, Mississippi

My Suggestions for this article
For the past month or so, several editors have been working together to improve this article. I hope to take this article all the way to Featured Article status, but in order to reach that goal, several changes must be made to the article. I plan to work on most if not all of them, and if anyone else wants to help, here are my suggestions to upgrade this article to FA:


 * Add a culture section. Looking through the list of all the featured articles of geographical places, I see most of them have a culture section. I suggest adding something about the Riley Center, Meridian Little Theatre, music in the city (mentioning Jimmie Rodgers and others), and some of the cultural attractions mentioned in the Sites of Interest section.


 * Find a way to shrink the lead section while still keeping all the information.


 * Possibly create a new article, History of Meridian, Mississippi, and use Summary Style to shorten the History section. The new article can go into much deeper detail than this section currently does.


 * Find information about Meridian in the 1970s and 80s to eliminate the history gap. I've looked through pages after pages of information about Meridian, but it seems as though the city disappeared between 1964 and 1997. I think, though, that the city was undergoing economic woes from the changing economy. Businesses probably closed and moved away from the city (this is touched on at the end of the "Golden Age" section, but there needs to be some actual dates in the 70s and 80s IMO). I can't find any hard dates for the closures of businesses and other events in this time period, but I'm sure there out there.
 * What about the Second Great Migration (African American) and/or the New Great Migration? I have no idea whether the online sources in the first article, or the offline books, would cover Meridian's involvement in particular but it would be something to talk about (making hand gestures drawing hands away from each other).... doncram (talk) 05:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the more likely explanation is White flight, though I haven't found any sources yet. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This pdf could possibly have some information from the 70s and 80s, but it's mostly about the revitalization of the city. Regardless, it has a lot of useful information and may need to be included. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC) (Information proved to be less important/useful than I had thought)


 * Possibly find a list of past Meridian mayors for the Government section. Some further expansion of the section is also needed.
 * Haha well it's not much, but as this site is expanded by the owner (who last updated the database in March 2009, so it appears as if he's at least semi-active), the list on the page will hopefully grow. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 09:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * If anyone can find some historical demographics data, that would be useful for the Demographics section to give an example of the effects of the changing economy on the population. Possibly from the 1980 and 90 census? Or censuses before then?
 * This pdf has some information about per capita income. I'll add it later, but this is a note to remind me. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC) (Information was about Lauderdale County, not Meridian)
 * This page has some old demographic data, but it's in graph form with no numbers. I wonder if I could contact the webmaster or something to find out real numbers? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 08:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This pdf contains a historical study of the city including total population, racial demographics, and some other factors. This is exactly what I was looking for. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The Geography section could probably include some more information. Examples of what to add can be found in the Featured Articles list mentioned above.


 * I'd like to include a little more in the Economy section such as hard figures from the city's annual economic report and more detailed information on the businesses, revenues, etc. in the city.


 * If someone could find/make a map of the interstate, U.S., and State highways in the city, that would be pretty awesome for the Highways section.


 * Major expansion of the Education section is needed. As of now, it consists of two simple paragraphs. Perhaps some historic data about the beginnings of education in the city? Awards, nominations, merits, etc. of local schools? Average levels of education for citizens?
 * ✅, though some more information couldn't hurt.


 * The Media and Publishing section needs some actual text instead of just tables. Perhaps some historical aspects of The Meridian Star (when it was founded, who it serves, where it's located, etc.)? I think the AM/FM and TV stations list should be shortened to include only the major stations and be converted to paragraph form.


 * The Sites of Interest Section is pretty long and may need to have its own article, Sites of Interest in Meridian, Mississippi. This may not be necessary if some are moved to the proposed Culture section.
 * The Famous Meridianites section may need to be expanded, but if so, I suggest creating a separate article for it, Famous people from Meridian, Mississippi.

These are my suggestions, and, like I said, I'll be working on these in the near future, so if anyone wants to join and help, that would be appreciated. Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks like a good plan, well informed by the peer review and your reviewing other FAs or GAs. I wonder, what about taking a printout of this list a printout and of the article to the central library reference desk, and directly asking for help.  I imagine that a librarian or two could tackle item #4 above, and help in other ways.  Anyhow, good luck! doncram (talk) 21:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Very impressive plan. Are you going to put it through a Good Article review first? I've been out of town, but should be able to help with some material now.  Doncram's suggestion of using local sources is s good one - it may be harder to find material you're looking for on the Internet. I can only research online; am not local. --Parkwells (talk) 13:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I thought I would wait until all this is finished to put it up for GA; IMO, it's not ready yet. If all of these things are finished, then the good article review won't take as long and it would provide more specific information instead of these broad suggestions. If it passes as a GA, I plan on immediately putting it up for FA. I'll try to go to the local library sometime, but I'm going to get as much off the internet as I can. I'm not really a fan of using books for references; I'd like anyone that visits the page to be able to see exactly what I'm seeing. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I just created History of Meridian, Mississippi. I copied the info from this article's History section and will work on shortening this section. Any expansion to the history of the city should be done there. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I just spent a few hours working on the article and created a new Culture section. I incorporated many of the places of interest into this new section and also added a few to the economy section. I plan to expand the Culture section a bit with some famous people (artists, singers, etc.) later. I'm eventually working toward making this a FA, so we'll see how that goes! :)--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Not too pleased about the removal of Different Seasons, aka Crossroads, gay bar and its featuring in a Kevin Smith film, Small Town Gay Bar. And I don't see where it's been moved to any related article. I think it should stay in the main article to at least give some balance to the demographics and culture of the city.. the Queen city even.

This content was removed: Different Seasons, formerly known as Crossroads, is one of the gay bars featured in the Kevin Smith (executive producer)/Malcolm Ingram (director) film Small Town Gay Bar and one of only 6 gay bars in Mississippi.

- ALLST✰R ▼ echo wuz here @ 03:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Dangit, I figured I'd slip that by you haha (not trying to be rude). I'm not saying I don't want it to be in the article; I just couldn't find anywhere to put it with the new organization. I think, like the Mississippi article, there should be some research done on the demographics section of the city (which currently has an expand tag), and an LGBT section (or whatever name consensus comes up with) can be added there.. along with African-Americans, Jews, and whatever other groups have greatly influenced the city.
 * Btw, I don't even think Crossroads/Different Seasons is open anymore.. Their website says "Crossroads closed but the web page remains. Enjoy." Technically, if it's not open, it shouldn't really be listed as a site of interest in the city. Maybe it could be included in a history of LGBT in the city? Like if something like Equality Mississippi was formed in Meridian that could be included, or if there was some rally or protest or something. I don't really know of anything in particular off the top of my head in the city, but since you're more versed in the subject, maybe you could contribute?
 * If you can come up with at least a few sentences on the history of LGBT, it can be included in the demographics section, but I feel like you're going to be hard-pressed to find anything more than the info about Different Seasons. I know there's one gay bar here now named Club Options.. but other than the fact that a few small bars have opened, gone bankrupt (or closed for whatever reason), and another opened in its place, there's just not really that much to talk about. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The film itself can be cited as a source as it contains a wealth of information. It covers the history of Crossroads and it touches on how gay people in such a conservative state have to go to such great lengths to meet and "be free". There's also a wonderful book by a Dr. John Howard (of Brandon, MS, now a professor at a university in London) that covers Mississippi gay history from the 1930s on up until the late 1980s (including a section of former Gov. Bill Allain and his trysts with transgender hookers). The book is called Men Like That: A Southern Queer History (Not sure why he didn't call it A Mississippi Queer History since that's all it's about). Maybe not so much to straight Mississippi, but Crossroads, later called Different Seasons, is a legend and monument in Mississippi LGBT history. - ALLST✰R ▼ echo wuz here @ 04:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah I see.. I didn't know the bar was that important. Regardless, it's not open anymore, so I think that should be specified when it's included in the article. It's good that a movie like this was made that is so apparently informative. If you can come up with a small draft of Meridian's LGBT history based on that movie (and ideally a few more sources), it can be added. Idk about that book, though.. it seems as if it covers the state as a whole. I didn't look at the book or anything, but if there's nothing specifically about Meridian, I can't see it being justified. If you can pull some stuff out related to the city, though, I'm all for it.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:32, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can get together. I've got to find my copies... of the movie and the book as much of that stuff is still boxed up from my house burning down March 2008. May take some time but that shouldn't be an issue as I'm sure you're in no hurry for this specific content. lol - ALLST✰R ▼ echo wuz here @ 04:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

John Robert Smith
I just updated the article for the new mayor, Cheri M. Barry. There was some information in the "Government" section about John Robert Smith, the former mayor, so I commented it out. This information is reliably sourced and notable (I guess?), so I don't think it should be removed from Wikipedia, but where should it go? There isn't enough information about him to start his own article, but he's no longer the mayor of this city! Haha anyone have any ideas? The commented out information is below:


 * The current mayor, John Robert Smith (R), has been in office since 1993 and has been recognized as an arts leader throughout the city and state, working on projects such as the restoration of Meridian's Grand Opera House, the future Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Center, upkeep and improvement of Bonita Lakes Park, the building of Bonita Lakes Mall, and development and construction of the Union Station multi-modal transportation center. He is also co-chairman of the National Forum on the Future of Passenger Rail, a member of Amtrak's board of directors, and a member of the transportation committees of the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. 

--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This page has now been updated with Barry's biography (or at least some of it), but I don't really find any of it noteworthy. It sounds more like a college application than a list of accomplishments. Still no one has any ideas about what to do with JRS's info? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Given his length of time in office, perhaps you could use Smith's accomplishments as a way of discussing new city directions during that time: emphasis on redevelopment, including Union Station as multi-modal center, intergovernmental and private collaboration, renovation of parks and infrastructure, encouraging redevelopment of historic buildings, etc. His membership on groups also tells you what directions city leaders in many areas were taking for redevelopment after the suburbs had drawn off businesses from downtowns. He looked outward to get ideas and build support.Parkwells (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)