Freaknik

📖 Excerpt from the Wikipedia article

Freaknik 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. 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. 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. The 1990s were also the period when the event became known as a space where African-Americans could "get freaky". Early 1990s Freakniks were characterised as celebrations of black sexuality; however, by the mid-1990s, this dimension started to draw a crowd completely divorced from the original college demographic of the event, and the tone of the event shifted from celebration to concern over the sexual element getting out of control. From 1995 onwards, sexual violence at the event began to grow, and women's attendance dropped rapidly, contributing to

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article „Freaknik“ (en.wikipedia.org), CC BY-SA 4.0.