ATLANTA — It's Atlanta history, but you won't find this in your grandma's textbooks.
Freaknik -- the legendary party from the past -- will apparently be getting it's time in the spotlight soon after Hulu said it's producing a documentary about the famed festival. Variety first reported the news.
The film, called "Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told," will reportedly follow the rise and fall of the influential street party. Another Atlanta legend, Jermaine Dupri, is also reportedly working on the project.
Right now, there's no slated release date, but there's no doubt it will bring back a lot of good -- and bad -- memories for people across Atlanta.
The origins of Freaknik are traced back to 1983, reports Atlanta Magazine, when a group of students attending the Atlanta University Center organized a picnic in Piedmont Park for students who couldn't travel back home for Spring Break.
But, over time, tales of the humble kick-back spread until it blew up from a mere picnic into a raucous week-long party. It drew -- according to reports by the Associated Press -- nearly 250,000 students and non-students alike to Atlanta, but nationwide attention also drew the ire of some Atlanta residents who complained about the noise, the gridlock and the dancing in the streets.
By the time Freaknik was held in 1994, city leaders faced growing pressure to shut the celebration down, and in '95 reports of rapes, looting arrests and shootings had marked the start of the festival's downfall.
Attempts have been made to revive the festival -- as recently as 2020 -- at Morris Brown College, but those plans were unraveled partly by the COVID pandemic.
