“The first Freaknic took place on the AUC campus. About 50 to 60 students turned up,” Toomer wrote. “The second year, we moved to Piedmont Park, and the next year — the last time I participated — we celebrated our annual picnic in Adams Park.”
By the mid-1990s, it was a mobile party on wheels, accompanied by massive traffic jams from long lines of cars cruising areas of downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, loud music coming from the vehicles and sound systems. And in the slow-moving traffic, partyers videotaped each other as some displayed public behavior that ranged from flirty to lewd. An AJC article from the 1993 event called it a “spring break frenzy of sleek cars, rowdy rap and galloping hormones.”
Freaknik officially ended in 1999.
Here are two AJC articles from 1993, one focused on the party and the other on the traffic challenges for the city and police.
Freaknik ‘93: City becomes Daytona Beach of sorts as students kick it up, max and relax
Yo, how far will tens of thousands of folks travel for a party? An impromptu roll call of a group of brothers chillin’ Thursday on the corner of Fair Street and James P. Brawley Jr. Drive across from Clark Atlanta University gives some indication.
“I’m from Kent State,” said one. “I’m from Cleveland,” said another from Ohio before his fraternity brother kicked in with, “I’m from Southern Illinois University.”
The party they’re traveling from as far as Cali (California for rap and hip-hop illiterates) to attend isn’t just any party – it’s Freaknik ‘93.
Considered “the Daytona Beach for African-American college students,” the three-day megagathering that jumps off today is expected to attract as many as 60,000 brothers and sisters ready to kick it up, max and relax at the end of the school year. READ MORE.
Traffic Jamming: Hard-partying Freakniks clog city streets
From downtown to Midtown and winding…
Read the full article here
