Freaknik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
For the Adult Swim television special, see Freaknik: The Musical.

Friknik, meaning to fraternize and have a picnic, was an annual spring break meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, primarily of students from historically black colleges and universities. Later during the early 1990s, those who did not understand the meaning of Friknik mispronounced it as Freaknik and it caught like wildfire. [1] Begun in 1983 as a small picnic near the Atlanta University Center, it was initially sponsored by the DC Metro Club [1] and was typically held during the third weekend in April to coincide with the schools of the Atlanta University Center's Reading Day. The event increased in size and popularity in the 1990s with dancing, drinking, parties, a basketball tournament, rap sessions, a film festival and a job fair.[2]

History[edit]

Freaknic was conceived in March 1983 on Spellman's campus during a meeting headed by then Spelman club president Skyla Goodson.. The event was an end of the year party for the DC Metro Club ( Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia students). Further, the event was to be a challenged to California Club "Earth Quake Jam" party promoted by Daryl Baptiste Miller member of the California Club, about who would throw the biggest end of school party.

The California Club had, had a party in late March, 1983 in which the floor of the house had caved in while students partied. Then they followed up with a party call called "Earth Quake Jam 2" DJ Randy T was the DJ. Under the club President of the DC Metro club Skyla Goodson, the name Freaknic was born. The name was a combination of Freaky and Picnic. It was a complete wholesome student pot luck in the park with occasional dancing. Dj Nab of New York(a Morehouse college Student was its first DJ with Daryl Baptiste Miller DJing the later part of the day. The first Freaknic was held at John A. White park. There were no more than 150 students who attended. In years to come the event grew to as many as 70,000 students from around the country.

In 1988, Spellman then President Jennetta B. Cole banned the D.C. metro club from being involved with the event known as Freaknic. Once the event was banned from the Spelman charted D.C. metro club, various student party promoters (Fantasy Entertainment owned my Daryl Baptiste Miller), The Garage night club owner, Ed Ruckers, night club owners Jeff of Club XS, fraternities ( Georgia Tech Omega's) began promoting Freaknic weekend events. Off campus entities not knowing its origination and intent began mistakenly spelling it as Freaknik with a "K". At the time the connotation was insulting to the Atlanta University Students who knew it rightful name.

Then night club owner (the Garage) Ed Ruckers and a female promoter named Vanis from D.C. promoted the event using the spelling "Freaknik". The name with a "k" was an effort to avoid legal service mark infringments. The events nature changed from being a wholesome HBCU family reunion type event, to an event of nudity and wild partying, traffic jams, massive numbers of rapes, robberies, etc.

Once the event became open to the general public, students from across the U.S. Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe came to Freaknic. As it grew, the festival attracted upwards of 350,000 revelers to the city in 1991. As Freaknic grew in attendance home owner's and businesses reception of the event became mixed.

Under pressure from the Piedmont Park area neighborhood Associations, then Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell banned Freaknic and put up road blocks through out freeway exists in the City of Atlanta in 1995.

The problems with Freaknic began in 1990, when the number of people coming to Atlanta for the event suddenly grew from 80,000 to more than 200,000 without any specific destination.

With major conventions in town, Freaknic participants cars block the cities other events from having access to venues. In some areas, the massive increase in cars on the road caused traffic to come to a halt, and the revelers got out of their cars and danced in the streets, on top of cars and buses. This in turn caused panic in some areas where people could not get home from their jobs. There were also several reports of violence, looting, rapes and other sexual assaults. All this showed Freaknic in a negative light. Though there was increased crime in the City of Atlanta, there were non students who came to the city that committed crimes. Of the major crimes committed during the Freaknic weekends, less than 1 percent where college students. [3][4][5][6][6][7]

Freaknik moves[edit]

Many Atlanta businesses filed lawsuits and business and community leaders pressured Mayor Bill Campbell to end Freaknic or severely crack down on the event. By 1996, the Atlanta police were out in large numbers, making it difficult for the revelers to party in the streets and engage in other illegal behavior.[3] After city leaders took measures to curtail Freaknic's accessibility, its popularity faded. As a result, Freaknic moved East of Atlanta to Memorial Drive in DeKalb County,. By 1999, celebration of the festival had died down due to heightened police security.

In April 2010, Atlanta officials said "there are no permitted Freaknic-related events inside the city limits." Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed also said that "he will be tough and even sue organizers of any Freaknic-related activities who violate city guidelines".[8]

Cultural influence[edit]

  • Williams Street Studios produced a 1-hour special spoof titled Freaknik: The Musical based on the popular festival. The show aired on Adult Swim on March 7, 2010.[9]
  • The event ‘Freaknik’ is mentioned in Beyoncé’s verse ( 3rd verse ) for the song ‘Top Off’ by DJ Khaled featuring Jay Z, Future and Beyonce
  • Rapper Lil Kim mentioned 'Freaknik' on her 1996 hit single Crush on You.
  • Freaknik was immortalized in Tom Wolfe's 1998 novel A Man in Full.
  • Rapper Chuck Inglish imagined the festivities of the Freaknik coinciding with the 1996 Olympics in his song Freaknik '96, off of his album Everybody's Big Brother.
  • Tiffany Haddish mentions Freaknik in her book The Last Black Unicorn.
  • In MF Doom's Song "Hoe Cakes" it's breifly mentioned.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Suggs, Ernie (2008-04-14). "Street party became its own undoing". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved 2008-04-14. It was a heck of a run. From 1983 until 1999, Freaknik — the college picnic that morphed into a sprawling street party — tormented, titillated and drove Atlanta to the brink but Chrissy said it came back for a while until 2010.
  2. ^ "Black students converge on Atlanta for Freaknik". CNN. 1997-04-18. Among the other activities planned are a party at a downtown club hosted by Michael Bivins of the hip-hop group "New Edition," a basketball tournament, rap sessions, a film festival and a daylong job fair.
  3. ^ a b "Should We Freak Out Over Freaknik? – IL Humanities". Prairie.org. Retrieved 2016-07-15.
  4. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2011-03-22.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
  5. ^ Kirby, Joseph A. (1997-04-18). "Atlanta Braces Itself For Annual 'Freaknik' Spring Break". Seattle Times Newspaper. Retrieved 2016-07-15.
  6. ^ a b "Atlanta News / Georgia News Section | AJC". Ajc.com. Retrieved 2016-07-15.
  7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-05-04. Retrieved 2008-06-07.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ "Reed: Atlanta will not tolerate Freaknic-related trouble". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 2010-04-14. Retrieved 2010-04-15.
  9. ^ "The Freaknik Is Back... Sort Of | DrJays.com Live | Fashion. Music. Lifestyle". Live.drjays.com. 2010-01-03. Retrieved 2016-07-15.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freaknik&oldid=896317442"