In late April 1994, Armstrong, then 25, had never been to Atlanta or been on a plane before.
Maybe it was nerves or motion sickness. She didn’t think much of it anyway. Especially after she finally landed in the city, passing through the busy Atlanta airport and wowing the crowds.
“I had never seen so many black people. Are you okay There were black men in my life,” Armstrong, now 55, said in a recent phone interview. “I said, ‘Oh, if this is going to be Freaknik, we’re going to have a good time.'”
Throughout the 1990s, Freaknik was considered the South’s wildest college spring break destination, with clunky video cameras shooting home videos and broadcasting them to millions on the Internet rather than in the attic. It thrived at a time when it was more likely to gather dust. At its peak, the party drew hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets of Atlanta, cars roaring, music blaring, and dancing on the hoods of cars.
Now, a Hulu documentary premiering Thursday details the rise and fall of freakniks, including their early days of culinary research, their increasingly hypersexualized environment, and their vibrant culture and music. We are unearthing archival footage documenting its impact as a center, and the chaos of violence and security issues. These events reached a critical point, and the city descended into chaos as political leaders and black Atlantans fought against each other.
Music giants Jermaine Dupri, Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, and 21 Savage will serve as executive producers. “Freaknik: The Wildest Party No One Talks About” This is a project that many Gen X and Boomer parents and their Millennial children are prepared for.
Last year, a niche social media trend emerged where kids asked their parents if they’d gone to Freaknik and shared their answers online. “Fifth please!” One mother declared In a text exchange with my daughter. But one Mr. Armstrong was thrilled by the news. She texted her kids in her family’s group chat without being told: I’m ready to tell my story. ”
Armstrong’s destination that weekend was Piedmont Park. Music was blaring and smoke was rising from the grill. Thousands of people danced and laughed, waving video cameras, microphones, drinks and cigarettes.
Piedmont, one of Atlanta’s largest public parks, has served as a central hub for the Freaknik Festival since 1983, when college students from the Atlanta University Center (AUC) DC Metro Club first organized the event.
The first Freakniks began as small picnics for students who weren’t home for spring break at historically black colleges in the area, including Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark University, and Morris Brown. Throughout the year, student organizers have been inspired by two popular songs, Thicke’s 1978 funk-disco hit “Le Freak” and Rick James’ 1981 “Super Freak,” to include “Freak” during their events. The theme was “The Return of the People”. So they named their spring break gathering “Freaknic,” later rewritten as “Freaknik.”
“The first event was relatively small, but then the event evolved in a short period of time just by word of mouth,” said Sharon Toomer, one of the original organizers. “Students from Tuskegee, Hampton, FAMU and the area started coming together. And he just kept getting bigger and bigger throughout the ’80s.”
By 1994, the atmosphere had changed dramatically. “If you can imagine a big Uncle Luke party, you know what it was like,” Armstrong said, referring to Luke, a rapper and promoter known for throwing raunchy parties in Miami. ” he said.
That same year, Naima Cochran, then a student at the University of South Carolina, drove to the party.
“I went into one of the last years of what I thought I would do.” [to be] The original freaknik,” said Cochran, now a music and culture journalist. “While there were certainly artists and celebrities there, it still felt like a university-centric event.”
At the time, the black college festival circuit crisscrossed the East Coast from Philadelphia to Florida, with crowds of students getting into their cars and making stops along the way.
“I’ll turn on the cooler.” [the trunk] And you just pack alcohol,” said Adrian Loving, a visual arts teacher who attended Freaknik as a student at Howard University in the early ’90s.
He said a responsible driver would get behind the wheel of a Ford Escort GT and pump it to Atlanta, a journey of more than 10 hours.
“We drove all night and when we arrived the lights were on,” he said. “The parties were huge. There were probably 30 or 40 parties that we could go to throughout the weekend. We were basically just party hopping.”
He said students will meet at the Atlanta University Center or another campus to decide on their career paths. “Paschal’s was always one of our first spots,” Loving said of the iconic soul food joint. “During Freaknik, we used to get together…and it was like having a block party out in front. It was one of the big meeting places.”
What Armstrong remembers most was the feeling of freedom.
“There was no violence, there was no fear of guns. There was nothing like that. Everyone was just free,” Armstrong recalled. “It was the best time of my life. …It was Blackwoodstock.”
FRieknik played a pivotal role in establishing Atlanta as a force in the music industry.
“The years that Freaknik grew up were around the same time that the Atlanta sound was revitalized,” Cochran said. “It was happening at the same time as Atlanta. young It’s not just a music city, it’s a music city. ”
The atmosphere was electric with up-and-coming Southern hip-hop artists. Rappers and promoters went around town and clubs handing out sampler cassettes. Most notably, his group Dungeon His Family His Hip Hop, featuring artists such as Killer Mike, Goodie Mob, and OutKast, were active in this scene.
Outkast, the acclaimed hip-hop duo consisting of rappers Big Boi and Andre 3000, released their debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik in the same week as Freaknik in 1994. “We started our careers because of Freaknik,” Big Boi said.past interview As a souvenir for the party.
Meanwhile, Dupri used the annual event to promote his record label, So So Def Recordings, which he started in 1993.
Before Freaknik, Dupri said, Atlanta was primarily perceived as a “stationary country town like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other major places.” Even though white Americans started paying more attention to hip-hop culture, “the South was never treated like it was supposed to be here,” he says.
Atlanta was in the Age of Exploration, Dupri added. “Everything is new here, and this discovery has given people freedom,” he said.
A rich civil rights history, rich black political power, and network of HBCUs drew visitors like Armstrong to Atlanta, a city of opportunity. “Atlanta felt like a sacred place for black people,” Armstrong said. “I was very impressed. And for a long time, I thought, ‘I want to move to Atlanta.'”
Executive producer Geraldine L. Porras said these factors laid the foundation for Freaknik’s flourishing, fostering connections through shared culture and experiences.
“But true beauty is [people] They come from various cities across the country [were] We also bring some of their culture, fashion and hair,” Porras said.
“And you’re kind of having a reunion. There are other people who look like you and you can relate to, but on the other hand, you’re going to see different styles in different places.”
FLeaknik attendees reached the peak More than 200,000 people gathered in 1994, and Piedmont Park could not contain them. Crowds filled streets and club venues across the city, blocking traffic in Atlanta.
Peachtree Street in particular is the city’s most iconic neighborhood, stretching a little over 29 miles from downtown to Midtown to Buckhead.
“On that street, it was just cars lined up back to back,” Armstrong said. “Everyone was hanging out the window at six miles an hour.”
The most memorable footage of the event came during a traffic jam, revealing a collision of revelry and chaos, with drivers blasting music at full volume. Women jumping out of cars and dancing.
“We had headlights on before you guys started turning on headlights,” Armstrong said. “We didn’t even have a word for twerking back then, baby.”
Armstrong said men flock to them all weekend and they can be “a little bit manipulative” and sneaky. At one point, she recalled, a male interviewer asked her a question. When she was about to answer, she noticed that he was holding a penis-shaped microphone. “They thought it was funny,” Armstrong said. “Well, you couldn’t get away with something like that these days.”
Armstrong said she and her friends stuck to the buddy system that weekend. “We didn’t go anywhere alone.”
Freaknik’s legacy has long been dogged by incidents of sexual assault, some of which were caught on camera. “We wouldn’t be doing Freaknik justice if we didn’t show all the parts,” Dupri said. “As exciting as it was for black people, this dark side of freaknik was also very noisy for the music.”
By the mid-’90s, the event had become a national destination and had lost some of its early flavor, Cochran said. In anticipation of the 1996 Olympics, the city took strict measures to control traffic and ensure public safety, barricading roads and interstate exits and canceling festivities. By the turn of the millennium, assaults were frequently reported. 1998 WSB-TV broadcast and MTV’s “True Life” footage Indicated Women are groped and stripped of their clothes by men in the crowd. In the same year, four rapes, six sexual assaults, and four shootings were reported.
black college student reportedly Pushed back on negative characterizations of freakniks, suggested they were racially stigmatized, cited other spring break parties There were many similar reports.
By 1999, attendance had dropped to 50,000, but in 2000 it finally declined.
“Ultimately, I think it was just a lack of organization that ended this incident,” Toomer said. “There was a lot of criminal activity going on after that, like sexual assault and rape. It just became something that was really indefensible.”
Efforts have been made over the years to restore it, but Also included is the annual Freaknik-themed club event hosted by 21 Savage. “It will never die,” Toomer said. “We’re talking about Freaknik 40 years later. So this is truly an unforgettable event in black culture, but I don’t think it’s possible to recapture that moment.”
DOn his last day in Atlanta, Armstrong began to feel strange. She vomited again at her friend’s house, where she and her best friend Cheryl spend the weekend together. This time Cheryl convinced her to take her pregnancy test.
“It was positive, but I was quickly put off by it,” Armstrong said of her disbelief.
Suddenly, her life entered a chapter where she had to leave the festival behind.
Her fiancé was excited about the news, as was Armstrong, who was initially shocked. “It was a happy time for us,” she said. Because it brought her now 29-year-old daughter, Kamory Beal.
“Who knew, Camory, all the time you were in Freaknik with me?” Armstrong said.
Beal said she didn’t know her mother had also been to Freaknik until she texted her family last year. “It’s fun to hear about the days when my mom used to go out partying and do the things I do now,” she said.
The two plan to watch a documentary together. And if you’re lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of your former self, Armstrong said.
“I don’t think it’s embarrassing at all,” Armstrong said. “I lived my life. I enjoyed it. I came here to pass this on to my children and grandchildren.”
“I think we had a great time,” Beal said. “I like you.”
