“Crowd of tourists”? What, Freaknik has moved to Panama City for Spring Break? Yeah, spring break...as if they are going to college to have a spring break. Does Burger King take EBT?
Freaknik Oh my, it was a happy day when they stopped coming to Atlanta. Traffic which has always been a nightmare was a gazillion times worse when they arrived.
Hadn’t thought about Freaknik in a long time.
It appears it is now illegal in Atlanta! LOL
Freaknik
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Freaknik was an annual spring break meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, primarily of students from historically black colleges and universities.[1] Begun in 1982 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]
In its heyday, the fest attracted upwards of 250,000 revelers to the city. However, Atlantans’ reception of the festival was mixed. Many residents had attended and enjoyed Freaknik since it was started. Otherwise, Freaknik went largely unnoticed by most of the city. The problems with Freaknik began in 1993, when the amount of people coming to Atlanta for the event suddenly doubled to more than 80,000 due in large part to the portrayal of Freaknik in Spike Lee’s 1988 film “School Daze” and the NBC-TV show “A Different World.” Many residents believe the City of Atlanta was caught off guard in 1993 by the increased number of people who came to the city for Freaknik. 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 started roaming the streets. This in turn caused panic in some areas where people could not get home from their jobs, and they were trapped in areas where many revelers started harassing and yelling obscenities at non-black residents. There were also several reports of violence, looting, rapes and other sexual assaults. All this showed Freaknik in a negative light, and Atlanta residents demanded that the city get control of the event.
Things came to a head in 1994-96, after the event swelled to 250,000 people from around the country, and as the crowds grew larger, so did the problems. With tens of thousands of more cars on the city’s streets, many of Atlanta’s major thoroughfares became gridlocked, which frustrated the city’s residents further as they were prevented from shopping, going to sporting and social events, attending school functions, even funerals. Emergency services were severely hampered. Also, with the larger number of revelers in the city, reports of shootings, robberies, looting, public lewdness and rapes increased. Thus, many Atlanta residents filed lawsuits and business and community leaders pressured Mayor Bill Campbell to end Freaknik 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 Freaknik’s accessibility, its popularity faded. As a result, Freaknik moved to Memorial Drive in DeKalb County, then to Daytona Beach, Florida. By 1999, celebration of the festival had died down due to heightened police security.
In April 2010, Atlanta officials said “there are no permitted Freaknik-related events inside the city limits.” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed also said that “he will be tough and even sue organizers of any Freaknik-related activities who violate city guidelines”.[4]