Freaknik

Freaknik was a meeting of (primarily African-American) college students from all over the United States, occurring yearly in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. It was usually held during the third weekend in April, which at that time was Reading Day (or the break between classes and exams) for the schools of the Atlanta University Center. It began in 1982 as a small quiet gathering in Piedmont Park.
For whatever reason, the event suddenly increased in popularity in 1994 and became a gathering primarily focused on dancing, drinking, and partying. The main problem with the event was that black youth were either driving slowly or stopping completely throughout the streets and highways of Atlanta.

In 1995, Greenbriar Mall was looted. After 1994, city leaders took measures to curtail Freaknik's accessibility and hence its popularity. Because of those plans, Freaknik in its later years moved to Memorial Drive in Dekalb County to take part in heavy late night club activity during that time.
At its peak in the mid-nineties, it drew upwards of 250,000 revelers to Atlanta. The primary complaint of Freaknik was that it brought extra criminal activity upon the city of Atlanta. It was last held in 1999. The Reverie of Freaknik passed on to Daytona Beach, Florida until the city officials also grew tired of the antics of the attendees and they took steps to kill Freaknik once and for all. A major catalyst for the death of Freaknik was the brutal rape of a college female in the city center.


Black Spring Break Events evolve from the unorganized Freaknik traffic gridlock Atlanta. during the 90s. Black Spring Break Events bring 100,000 participants to Daytona Beach, Florida, Galveston, Texas and Miami, Florida.

(PRWEB) April 6, 2005 -- For many years, especially during the late 80's and early 90's, the Freaknik In Atlanta, Georgia brought in over 250,000 participants.

It created enormous traffic gridlock and was considered the hot zone for hundreds of thousands of black college students who traveled from all across the country every April to Atlanta, Georgia. For many of those years, it lived up to its name. It was Freak-Nik! There were the wild parties on the street, the dancing, the traffic jams and of the kinds of things you might have witnessed in a Girls Gone Wild type video if they had existed back then.

In fact so many came in 1992, Atlanta was brought to a standstill. It became an event that was heard about through out the world. It also received extra attention because it was also the headquarters of a famous 24 hour cable news station. In fact this month marks the 5th Anniversary of the death of Freaknik. In 2000 the event died while other spring break events took its place and have since become very popular in their own right. Black College Reunion in Daytona Beach, Florida, April 15-17, 2005, The Kappa Beach Party in Galveston Texas( April 15 -17, 2005) and newest spring break event The Miami Springfest hosted by P.Diddy in Miami, Florida(April 29- May 2, 2005) are all scheduled to take place this month. And each will bring in over 100,000 college students per event.

Terrance Smith, CEO of http://www.blackbeachweek.com/ a website and newsletter which focuses on African American Spring Break events, explains that spring break events such as those named remain extremely popular because they a fill a cultural void that many of the traditional spring break events leave out.

Smith also goes on to explain that "unlike the Freaknik event in Atlanta, spring break events of today offer a variety of things to do such as concerts, car shows, job searches and career development recruitment. They are also being backed by sponsors which was unheard of in the past”. Smith predicts that spring break events will continue to grow and expand in different cities in future years.

Brazil Carnival

The Brazilian Carnival (Portuguese: Carnaval) is an annual festival in Brazil held 40 days before Easter and marks the beginning of Lent. During Lent, Roman Catholics are supposed to abstain from all bodily pleasures, including the consumption of meat. The carnival, celebrated as a profane event and believed to have its origins in the pagan Saturnalia, can thus be considered an act of farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.

Brazilian Carnival as a whole exhibits some differences with its counterparts in Europe and other parts of the world, and within Brazil it has distinct regional manifestations.

Because it precedes Lent, Carnival long ago was conceived as the last chance for 40 days to eat meat, to make love and to live joyously, all forbidden activities during the season when one is supposed to do penance in preparation

- for a spiritual resurrection at Easter. Thus it was not too hard to see how the Carnival period, from one or two days to several weeks, came to be in the specific time when one purposely set out to break the mold, to determine to do all the things normally impossible or forbidden in everyday life, and perhaps even to fulfill oneself by trying out one or more alternative roles or lifestyles to be for a short time what one could never be in ordinary life. This is the reversal phenomenon so often noted in Carnivals everywhere, wherein regular behavior is reversed, and people choose to do the very opposite of their normal behavior.

Carnival is truly profane since it seeks specifically NOT to be sacred, and indeed to do violence to propriety and respectability by irreverence and even contempt, often made all the more effective through the use of indirection, humor, and irony. Such profanation is the specialty of European Carnivals, elements of which are specifically designed to be sacrilegious, as shocking as possible to the conservative and the religious




Perhaps this is the place to proclaim “Crowley’s Law”: The lower the class (and darker the skin), the more serious the carnavalesco. Bahians and African-nationalist Cariocas (natives of Rio) often compare their increasingly race-conscious Afoxe and Bloco Afro parading organizations with Catholic religious street procession at Corpus Christi and other holy days. “This is our chance to display our culture and religious beliefs, just like the (white) Catholics do during their festivals.
More and more, Afro- Brazilian mythology derived from Yoruba sources is featured as the subject of Carnival. For instance, Iemanja (Yemoja in Yorubaland), the Goddess of the Sea syncretized with the Virgin Mary, was the chose subject of the Bahian Carnival of 1984, with an immense picture made of multicolor strands of light bulbs suspended across the line of march in the Praca Castro Alves, and the sacred symbols of the other gods and goddesses of the pantheon in giant lighted form displayed on lampposts throughout town and around the harbor.