Freaknik

For the Adult Swim television special, see Freaknik: The Musical. For the hacker convention, see PhreakNIC.

Freaknik (/ˈfriːknɪk/; originally Freaknic) was an annual spring break festival in Atlanta, Georgia. It was initially attended by students enrolled at historically black colleges and universities in the Atlanta University Center.[1] It began in 1983 as a small picnic in a public park near the Atlanta University Center sponsored by the D.C. Metro Club for students who could not afford to return home for spring break.[1] It continued as an annual event held during the third weekend in April. The event drastically increased in size and popularity in the 1990s, incorporating dance contests, concerts, parties, a basketball tournament, rap sessions, a film festival and a job fair.[2]

The Atlanta magazine called it Atlanta's most infamous street party.[3] As the event grew to over 250,000 people, the problems worsened. By 1999, Atlanta area police and elected officials worked together to end Freaknik. A revamped version returned for one day on June 22, 2019, as "FreakNik Atlanta '19 - The Festival" with a concert at Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood.[4]

Originally "Freaknic", the name of the event is a portmanteau of "picnic" and "freak", in accordance with the D.C. Metro Club's 1982–1983 theme "The Return of the Freak".[5]

  1. ^ a b Suggs, Ernie (April 14, 2008). "Street party became its own undoing". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2008. It was a heck of a run. From 1983 until 1999, Freaknic — 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 Freaknic". CNN. April 18, 1997. 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. ^ "Freaknik: Rise and fall of Atlanta's most infamous street party". March 18, 2015.
  4. ^ Kempner, Matt (June 22, 2019). "FreakNik's mini return to Atlanta sparks array of memories". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
  5. ^ "Partying "The Atlanta Way"? Freaknik and Black Governance in 1990s Atlanta". September 26, 2017.