Thousands of Black college students expected this weekend for an annual spring bash at Georgia’s largest public beach will be greeted by dozens of extra police officers and barricades closing off neighborhood streets. While the beach will remain open, officials are blocking access to nearby parking.
Tybee Island, east of Savannah, has grappled with the April beach party known as Orange Crush since students at Savannah State University, a historically Black school, started it more than 30 years ago. Residents regularly groused about loud music, trash littering the sand and revelers urinating in yards.
Those complaints boiled over into fear and outrage a year ago when record crowds estimated at more than 100,000 people overwhelmed the 3-mile island. That left a small police force scrambling to handle a flood of emergency calls reporting gunfire, drug overdoses, traffic jams and fist fights.
I think I’m going to have to go with the officials who are claiming this isn’t about race, but is about 100,000 college students descending on a town of 3000 people on an island that’s 3 miles across for a huge spring break party.
Having been there, yeah it’s most likely almost 100% about the massive population increase during party season.
However, having met a lot of those redneck Tybeeians, I bet there’s at least some racism happening in response for sure.
I’m sure there are plenty of racists there who will be happy if the party is banned, but I don’t think that’s why the town is trying to stop it.
Completely agree, the island is just too small for that many people. When I first saw the headline I thought for sure that they had added an extra zero. 100,000 people in that town/on that beach would be insane.
Yeah the island is just not that big lol. I love Tybee but it can’t handle no 100k people
Yeah exactly, I do wonder how many are just coming from Savannah for the weekend/day, or if tens of thousands of people are actually staying in Tybee at the same time.
College kids are rowdy and do crazy shit. I know I did. There’s almost certainly a racist component, but the core problem would exist even if all the college kids were white. Over 100,000 people! Yikes!
I wasn’t a big partier, but I once went to Myrtle Beach because I had to see the ocean for my own sanity and even though it was an 11-hour drive, it was the closest coast I could get to. It wasn’t quite summer yet and it was after spring break, but it was still filled with rowdy college students getting drunk, puking and pissing everywhere, screaming from their cars which were blaring loud music, etc. That’s what they were doing when it wasn’t party time.
Thankfully, I stayed in the state park in a tent and didn’t have to deal with them much.
Been there and Tybee seems annoyed with tourists of any race, at any time of the year
Having lived in Hollywood (it was close to work), I can totally understand that sentiment. You know you’re in a tourist area but the tourists are so often such assholes that you end up hating them.
I just watched a documentary on Atlanta’s “FreakNik” which got shut down for similar reasons. Started off fine, got out of control, got shut down. :( Then it got corporatized and that killed it for good.
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/gallery-looking-back-freaknik/Dek76YxLetjnG4aMaPAmaN/
You can watch the documentary on Hulu:
https://press.hulu.com/shows/freaknik-the-wildest-party-never-told/
I’ve heard about FreakNik, but I know very little about it. Thanks.
I went to DragonCon back in the 90s and it was nuts, but in a fun way. I’m guessing it’s totally corporate now, although I know attendance has grown massively.
Back then, I got to see Gwar and The Misfits live for free (it wasn’t even in a part of the area where they were checking wrist bands) and celebrities didn’t ask for money for an autograph.
Atlanta had a small concert thing going put on by the 99x music station there that was only worth it because it was free. (On the Bricks was the name.) Great acts played there, but the crowds were terrible. Soooo many people and the hivemind was in full effect. N.E.R.D. was there and they played their popular song at the time (Lapdance I think.) and the crowd would not let them play anything else. Did the same thing to Sevendust. I don’t think it lasted long though.
Atlanta crowds are something else.
… as opposed to Black Crush, the annual gathering of MAGA students.
