Growing up outside of Atlanta in the 1980s and 1990s, Freaknik drew mixed opinions depending on your demographic and how tolerant you were. As Atlanta and many other towns and cities in the South were home to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, it was an event that was bound to happen eventually.
By the 1980s, Florida during Spring Break had become the hotbed of college students getting out of the colder Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England states to get some sun. Fort Lauderdale was the epicenter while others went to Fort Walton or Daytona Beach. But most of the college students were white. There wasn’t much of a place for black students.
So why not have it in Atlanta? There’s Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, Clark Atlanta all within a short drive or MARTA transit ride away from each other. And many other Georgia colleges and universities had a black population that wasn’t being represented. And like all things, it began as something simple and fun. They would plan a huge picnic for all the black students to get together, mainly because a lot of them didn’t have the access or resources to go back to their hometowns during the week-long vacation.
Hulu’s Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told offers a more Reader’s Digest version of the event in a very short 82-minute documentary that never does find a true narrative. It’s nice seeing all the students who are now pushing 60 talking about forming a picnic at the Atlanta University Center and then seeing how the word spread over time, thanks in part to School Daze, Spike Lee’s movie which was filmed in Atlanta and shined the light on the HBCU life. Then, there was A Different World, a popular sitcom also set at a fictional HBCU in which a character was wearing a shirt showing off Freaknik.
Hulu’s had a difficult problem with some of their documentaries, mainly because unlike Netflix, they just merely scratch the surface. Director P. Frank Williams never does seem to focus too much on too many things the way a true documentarian should. While the event brought in a lot of money and revenue to the Atlanta area and surrounding communities, it also brought in a lot of crime and traffic problems. Once Luke Campbell of 2 Live Crew shot a music video at the event, it became something that grown adults, mostly in the 30s and 40s began to use and exploit.
By the mid-1990s, there was cause for concern as women were getting sexually assaulted. I remember watching a news report where they were showing video of men ripping a woman’s clothes off while people tried to save her. This is the South and there still were (and are) people there who had very racist and prejudiced thoughts of all black people. The pressure would build on then-Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell and his office to rein in the crime and debauchery especially as preparations were being made for the 1996 Centennial Olympics. And by the end of the 1990s, Freaknik was no more.
But aside from a lot of talking heads who seem to be repeating the same thing, this really never amounts to anything more than watching someone else’s vacation videos, as I’ve heard other reviewers call it. People question why there wasn’t much of a concern down in Florida, but there eventually was at the 2000s started. Mainly Atlanta just wasn’t prepared. When I was attending school at Georgia Southern University, about 100 miles or so south-east of Atlanta, the black students would have Playa’s Ball, which is probably what Freaknik should’ve been. However, there was a lot of law enforcement in the area to handle it, even though it really just amounted to a little extra traffic in certain areas, apartment complexes hiring extra security and giving directions to people on what good places they can eat near Wal-Mart on the other side of town.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 