Atlanta has always been a haven for the Black community. Countless historically significant events to this group has taken place there. However, none was more wild and more memorable than Freaknik.
The Origins of Freaknik
The city of Atlanta is composed of multiple historically Black colleges and universities (“HBCUs”). The Atlanta University Centre (AUC) is comprised of institutions the likes of Spelman, Morehouse, and Morris Brown College as well as Clark Atlanta University.
HBCU’s tend to the an ideal landing spot for many graduating African-American high school seniors due to many factors. The classroom demographics generally lean toward a high population of Black individuals from across the diaspora. Additionally, Black role models in positions of power are plentiful in the Atlanta area.
Spring break has always been a time where college students take a reprieve from their academic life. This is typically in the form of gatherings, parties and other social events. However many had no clue that the landscape of this time was about to change dramatically.
The Very First Event
In the spring of 1983, Sharon Toomer, Tony Towns, Monique Tolliver-Logan, Amadi Boone, and Emma Horton kicked off the very first “Black College Spring Break”. They were members of the “DC Metro Club”, one of the college “state clubs” which were akin to sub-communities formed by students from the same state.
The DC Metro Club was known for throwing the best parties. In addition, they organized an event during spring break for the vast amount of college students who could not afford to go home. A picnic was planned as something that was for everyone. The name of the event was inspired by the song Le Freak by Chic, combined with “picnic” which gave birth to the blended name “Freaknic”.
The first Freaknik was celebrated in a nondescript area of Piedmont Park and only had about 50 attendees. These college students, though “strapped” for cash, were determined to make the event a success. They worked hard to get donations and other assistance. The community responded in a major way by offering lots of support. The first Freaknik ended up being a huge success, yet the original organizers had no idea that they were about to make history.
How exactly was this going to pan out? As life tends to dictate, with any successful venture there is a good, a bad and an ugly side.
A scene from the “Freaknik” documentary trailer. Hulu
The Good side of Freaknik
Some say that Freaknik started at a time when the world was a bit more conservative. As the years progressed and attendance grew, the event morphed into something much bigger than what organizers originally anticipated.
The ‘80s were truly the “pure” years of Freaknik. The event for passing time over a school break, soon became the reason why students didn’t go home.
As the ‘90s began, hundreds and thousands of people would come from far and wide, every third weekend of April, to experience Freaknik. It was a festival of fun, freedom, and spirit. Freaknik was much bigger than a party; it was fashion, culture, food, music, concerts, dance, and love. Just like hip-hop, it easily became a very important part of Atlanta’s culture.
Freaknik was an event that thrived tremendously by word of mouth. Adolescents the ‘90s did not have social media or email campaigns. Target audiences from other states simply heard the incredible stories from their friends and began to save the dates.
During this time, many thought of Freaknik as a car show because in the ‘90s, most people were driving up to attend the event. Consequently, everyone wanted to “show off” their “Suzuki Samurais” and the new rim treatments. This largely made sense because attending Freaknik, you would find music commonplace every direction and lots of dancing in, on and around vehicles.
Freaknik’s Sense of Belonging
As this was a festival largely attended by students enrolled at HBCUs, it easily created a sense of community and belonging for all of those in attendance. It was a slice of heaven for anyone, considering the context of pungent realities outside of that bubble. Racism and societal discrimination was very much alive in this era. Freaknik was a gathering that formed an exciting and safe community getaway. Women, especially, found this experience extremely liberating. They could express themselves through fashion, hairstyles, and consequently their romantic desires, free of any kind of judgment.
“[It was] the mecca for Black people in America.” —21 Savage, Rapper, Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told.
As this sense of community propagated from the festival, it began to spread into other aspects of life. Event goers saw Atlanta as their home; and as a result began to migrate to and build families there. It became a city of Black love, Black excellence, and Black enterprise. Atlanta politics began to see a wave of new Black faces. The city became a symbol of cultural, economic, and educational possibility.
The influence of Freaknik could be seen in the widespread appetite it created for Black culture in cinematography. In addition, before many celebrities became the popular, they were spotted at the festivities. Some of these stars included Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G, David Justice, T.I., Usher, Goodie Mob, and OutKast to name a few.
Freaknik became the platform that amplified Atlanta’s voice, music, and culture to the world. It was in this amplification of the Southern hip-hop scene that the storm began to brew.
The Bad
Freaknik, from its inception, was not sponsored or supervised by the AUC . It was a festival created by and celebrated by college aged people. Therefore without oversight, there was only one outcome you could expect.
Debauchery: extreme indulgence in behavior that is often considered immoral.
As was mentioned earlier, Freaknik became a platform that amplified Southern hip-hop. Typically, most of this genre has lyrical content that is overtly sexual and inherently violent. Hence, once influential voices mixed with the hedonistic yet impressionable minds of students, specific trends began. The result was a mass spurring of public nudity, displays of sexual acts, alcohol & drug use, to name a few.
Circling back to the fact that these were essentially kids, it had not initially occurred to any authorities that there was a need to rein in control of the event. However, as things spiraled and much older individuals even began to attend the festival, the Atlanta government began to see Freaknik no longer as college students having a good time but as a breakdown in law and order.
The name “Freaknik” was completely misleading from its inception as to what it really was: a Southern cookout. But eventually, the picnic exploded into an unconfined state-wide street party. Traffic levels put the entire city at a standstill. The mostly caucasian inhabitants of Atlanta began to complain and reportedly state they did not want Freaknik in Atlanta anymore.
Then the 1996 Summer Olympics came into the fray.
Legal Ramifications
Mayor Bill Campbell had allowed Freaknik when it was a more manageable event that would make the city of Atlanta a few million dollars. However, the Olympics was the biggest event in Atlanta’s history (much bigger than Freaknik) that would attract billions of dollars to the city coffers. The Freaknik crowd could potentially stand in the way of that. Traffic gridlocks were not allowing thousands of conventional businesses to operate as they usually would.
These circumstances, thus, marked the beginning of police involvement in the festival. Certain streets were barricaded so that Freaknik attendees driving into Atlanta could not drive through them. Hotels and restaurants began to deny entry to the Freaknik-ers. Atlanta began to prepare for the Olympics by cleaning up and putting Freaknik out. In the words of musician CeeLo Green, it was a game of “big bank take little bank.”
Obviously, this created lots of tension because the Freaknik crowd realized that the authorities did not want them around. However, what could they do against such massive shows of force from law enforcement? Nothing, in truth. Ergo it was at this point that the fall of Freaknik began.
Freaknik’s ugly turn
During the latter years of Freaknik, public sex, indecent exposure, and sexual violence towards women became more common. This came to a head in the 1998 when authorities began to receive reports of rape and sexual assault. Additionally, the realization that the police barricades kept the predominantly Black Freaknik crowd away from the predominantly caucasian neighborhoods in Atlanta started to set in. While the police were very successful in this cordoning off, they were candid about their inability (some reportedly called it unwillingness) to control the incidents within the Freaknik crowd.
The official response to incidences of sexual violence was to advise women to “have fun, but be careful.” It was clear at this point that Freaknik was just as dangerous as it was “fun”. But fun for who? The festival that was once known for freedom, was now not a safe space.
The majority of the reported incidents were perpetuated by male, non-college aged individuals. Unfortunately, the blatant degradation of women began to reinforce the false narrative that Black men were inherently sexually violent, predators, and irresponsible. Soon enough, Black people themselves began to avoid Freaknik and it got to the point that Freaknik started to erode into obscurity.
Fallout
Before this decline, efforts had been made by the government to appoint a “Black Spring Break Planning Committee” to address the public safety problems emanating from Freaknik and find possible solutions. However, when then chairman, George Hawthorne, submitted the committee’s report following the events of violence against women, their clear recommendations were to end Freaknik entirely.
As a result, Mayor Campbell announced that the city of Atlanta would no longer host the festival. “It is not an event that we feel is appropriate for our city,” he stated in his pronouncement. To many, Freaknik had become an ugly monster that was eating away at the dignity and security of women and college students in Atlanta. Therefore, many people commended the courage it took on the mayor’s part to put an end to a cultural icon.
Since there would be no Freaknik officially in 1999, former festival goers made alternative spring break plans such as heading to Daytona Beach. However, was this really the death of Freaknik once and for all?
Not quite.
Freaknik Today
Nostalgia has kept Freaknik alive in the minds of the many who got to experience its good ol’ days. Hence, we find several young people making tremendous efforts at reviving the culture by replicating its themes in their parties, celebrations, and festivals.
In 2019, 2 decades after the last event, Carlos Neal organized The Freaknik Festival, a modern-day reboot. The first event was a concert which was headlined by Luther Campbell, Juvenile, Trina, and others at the Cellairis Amphitheatre. The event also had other activities that were available throughout Atlanta such as a community service event. Notably, many of the estimated 20,000 attendees were older adults who participated in the original Freakniks of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
While many enjoyed this new Freaknik, many others believe that this event will never be like the original. One thing we can be certain of is that Freaknik created an indelible stamp in the collective consciousness of Atlanta and the nation. That impression has spanned generations and may continue well into the future.
