Source: Prince Williams / Getty
Generation Z and millennials are interested in seeing the lore behind the event they’ve been told about for years. However, Gen-X’ers are worried they’ll be caught on camera doing heinous acts at Freaknik, the street festival for Black college-aged kids that took over Atlanta during spring break in the 1990s.
It started in the mid-1980s as an annual picnic gathering by Atlanta-area
HBCUs but later morphed into a cultural event known for scandalous behavior fuelled by partying and networking.
According to
Variety,
Hulu recently announced that a doc titled
Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told surrounding the rise and demise of the events will be coming to the streaming service. Those behind the content include Emmy Award-winning directors Geraldine L. Porras and P. Frank Williams, Jermaine Dupri, Luther Campbell, Peter Bittenbender and Melissa Cooper for
Mass Appeal.
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“’Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told’ recounts the rise and fall of a small Atlanta HBCU picnic that exploded into an influential street party and spotlighted ATL as a major cultural stage,” reads Hulu’s description. “Can the magic of Freaknik be brought back 40 years later?”
In the 1990s, local community groups began to speak out about Freaknik’s danger to the area and called for its cancelation.
“We cannot support events that bring lewd activities, sexual assaults, violence against women and public safety concerns; firetrucks not being able to reach victims, and ambulances not being able to reach hospitals in a timely manner,″ the Atlanta Committee for Black College Spring Break told the
Associated Press in 1998.
https://twitter.com/TrainLikeDime/status/1644942141049786369?s=20
One woman took to TikTok to express her thoughts on the documentary after admitting she was present at several annual events, including in 1994.
“I’m just praying that Jesus be a fence. I’m praying that Jesus just be a big, tall privacy fence. That’s my prayer. I will say this, like when they would bring out those video cameras and start recording, I immediately removed myself from that situation. If you see ya girl in the documentary, hey, man, at least I’m fully clothed,” she said. “At least all my clothes is on. That’s all I got. They ’bout to put our business out in the street. Some of us might be on TV, so get your parental controls together.”
See how Twitter’s reacting to the documentary’s announcement below.
